Nick Lees: Newly appointed CEO prepares to bike in support of CASA s Indigenous programs edmontonjournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from edmontonjournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Posted: May 01, 2021 7:30 AM MT | Last Updated: May 1
A comet fragment burning up in Earth s atmosphere in February 2021 is captured by the Hesje Observatory, southeast of Edmonton.(Hesje Observatory)
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Monday morning fireball was a comet fragment burning up in Earth’s atmosphere
Western Canadians caught a glimpse of a bright flash overhead this week as a fireball lit up the sky on Monday morning. Now, University of Alberta researchers have used Western Canada’s most advanced fireball network to capture images and trajectory of the fireball revealing it to be a small piece of a comet that burned up in the atmosphere.
“Using two observation sites, we were able to calculate both its trajectory and velocity, which tell us about the origin of the meteor and reveal that it was a piece of a comet,” said Patrick Hill, post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “This chunk was largely made of dust and ice, burning up immediately without leaving anything to find on the ground but instead giving us a spectacular flash.”
Meteor lights up sky in Alberta and Saskatchewan | Article cbc.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cbc.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
New observatory opens in dark sky preserve near Edmonton
Whether it’s watching for aurora, shooting stars, or the planets, Edmonton-area star gazers have a new tool to get a closer look at the night sky.
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Posted: Jan 12, 2021 12:57 PM MT | Last Updated: January 12
Hesje Observatory, western Canada s first observatory in a dark sky preserve, opened Tuesday southeast of Edmonton. (Supplied/ University of Alberta)