Fireballs Light Up Ontario Skies In Late November and Early December 2022
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Photo Submitted to AMS by Ryan C. of North Royalton US Dec 1 2022
Have you seen a fireball during recent weeks? There have been four notable ones that our community members and others have reported. The latest one was on December 1, 2022 at approximately 7:34pm EST. It was very bright and lasted about 10 seconds, which is longer than most fireballs. Perhaps you unknowingly captured it on a security camera.
One of our community members, Mike C. posted about it shortly after he saw it in our Ontario Storm Reports group. Mike asked if others had seen it and said that it “Appeared out of nowhere, from a bright orange/white, turned green/blue, and eventually disintegrated in the atmosphere.”
Jared Rackley of Pittsburgh caught the fireball on his Nest camera:
Over 1100 reports (to date) of this fireball have been submitted to the American Meteor Society from observers in Ontario and 14 states. Below is the heat map showing the location of the observers and the fireball’s path through the atmosphere in blue from the American Meteor Society event page. This is one of the most reported fireballs.
The meteor was observed by three of the NASA-dedicated cameras in the area. From these observations they were able to determine the orbit and estimated weight of the object. It was an asteroidal fragment that had an approximate diameter of 12 cm and a weight of over a kilogram. It was first seen at an altitude of 84 miles above Morganville, Ohio. It traveled eastward at a speed of 55,500 km per hour for 182 km through the atmosphere before disintegrating 30 km above Ringgold, West Virginia. See the NASA Meteor Watch post.
The fireball that was observed on November 19 at 3:26am EST made news headlines. For only the sixth time our global asteroid warning system predicted the impact an asteroid:
Here is the heat map from AMS showing the 79 observer locations from Ontario and 6 states as well as the fireball’s path through the atmosphere:
Jeff Renaud’s article describes the international collaboration and meteorite hunt for the remnants of the small asteroid designated 2022 WJ1 including the predicted meteorite fall zone. Weather radar picked up the falling debris to help researchers pinpoint the potential locations of meteorites from the asteroid.
More information can also be found in NASA’s article and also on SpaceWeather.com’s archive for Nov 19th, 20th and 21st.
Later that same day (November 19th) at 10:13pm EST a fireball was reported in Ontario and 4 states by 158 observers to AMS.
Another fireball was seen on November 26 at 10:33pm EST. There were 159 reports from Ontario, Quebec and 9 states. Here is the heat map of observers and the very short path through the atmosphere:
Early December 2020 also saw three fireballs light up the sky in Southern Ontario including an impressive daytime fireball.
Since the Geminid meteor shower is currently active it is possible that we could see more fireballs. This meteor shower will reach its peak on the night of December 13/14. There is also always the chance of sporadic meteors/fireballs which are not associated with a meteor shower.
You can report fireball observations (and also send in videos and pictures if you have them) to the American Meteor Society (AMS) or it’s partner the International Meteor Organization (IMO). The reports not only alert them to potentially scientifically significant events, they also add to the database of knowledge about meteors.
