It was a night like any other, on my way home from hockey practice in Woodstock. Kyle Hemphill and his 7-year-old son Keenan suddenly saw a flash of light in the sky.
“The sky got brighter. I don’t know how to explain it. It was like a bluish, greenish kind of thing,” Hemphill said. “I thought it was a shooting star, but it’s too bright for that.”
Keenan had other ideas.
“He started talking about aliens and I was like, ‘No, not aliens,'” Hemphill said with a laugh.
When they got home, they went online to learn more about what they saw and watched some videos.
But what exactly did father and son see?
Amateur astronomer Chris Kerwin of St. John said he had been hearing about the video since Monday night.
he told CBC Radio. shift It was so bright and fast across the sky that it was likely a meteor rather than space debris, and since we were just emerging from the tail end of the Quadriids meteor shower, it could be its debris. I added that it was expensive.
“These are special stars that usually have very good fireballs, and they hit the atmosphere at about 150,000 kilometers per hour,” Kerwin said.
“So it’s really fast.”
And what exactly is a meteor? It all comes down to definition, Kerwin said.
Meteoroids are fragments of asteroids, but if you see a bright streak of light across the sky, it’s a meteor, Kerwin said. If it hits the Earth, the rock is called a meteorite.
But did this land?
“So it’s really like a treasure hunt,” Kerwin said, adding that as more sightings are reported, scientists will be able to better track the path of the meteorite if it hits Earth. He added that it could be useful.
Kerwin said the sightings, including Monday night, are being tracked by the American Meteor Society. Sightings have been reported around Saguenay, Kenya, and as far south as Maine and Massachusetts.
“It’s a rare event to see a meteor like that, like a fireball,” Kerwin said.
But that seems to be changing.
More sightings thanks to security cameras
The best footage of the meteor was captured by surveillance cameras in Fredericton. Mr Kerwin said the increase in surveillance cameras was having an unexpected impact.
“Yes, we’re capturing a lot more of them than ever before, just because people are using them for security purposes.”
Kerwin said when people go to check their footage, they get shots they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
Chris Lukings was one of the lucky Fredericton residents who caught the meteorite on his home security camera.
He reviewed his footage after hearing that a neighbor down the street had filmed it.
“I watched it so many times today and sent it to different friends. I really enjoyed being able to enjoy it today,” Lukings said, adding that it’s the coolest thing he’s ever captured on camera. He added that it was.
“Now you might want to move your camera a little higher to capture more of the sky,” Lukes said.
But despite the increasing popularity of cameras, Kerwin says there’s no harm in observing the night sky the old-fashioned way.
“It’s always good to look up.”
