Bright fireball in sky triggers fire calls

The sky — and Twitter — lit up after a sighting of a fireball Wednesday over Edmonton.

Was it a bird? A plane? More likely, it was a meteor.

Researchers were asking anyone with a security camera or dash camera footage, or anyone who may have witnessed it, to come forward so they can find the fragments.

Reports suggest the meteor broke up around 5:22 p.m. and that it may be north of Lac La Biche, but researchers will need additional information, Frank Florian, director of planetarium and space sciences at the Telus World of Science, said Wednesday night.

Florian said a Royal Astronomical Society of Canada member saw the fireball and said at peak brightness, it was as bright as a full moon.

The big “flash” suggests the meteor broke into pieces, he said.

The size of the fragments would depend on the size of the “parent body” and what the rock is made of, he said.

There are stony, iron and stony-iron meteorites.

“Wintertime is a good time to find little black pieces of rock,” Florian said, because they will show up against the snow.

The University of Alberta recently installed an all-sky camera with colleagues at Athabasca University, which — barring light pollution — may have captured the space rock, meteorite expert Chris Herd said.

“People will always, always say, ‘Oh, it fell just over there,’ ” Herd said. “It’s an optical illusion. It could be hundreds of kilometres away.”

In 2008, when a bright fireball was spotted over Edmonton, Herd and others subsequently found meteor fragments near Lloydminster.

A spokesperson for Edmonton Fire Rescue Services said crews were called out for reports of a fireball, but did not find a fire and were unable to identify the cause of the sightings.