QUEEN'S / RASC FIREBALL CENTRE

Bolide

by Christine Kulyk


You briefly passed this way,
And night became like day.
With fiery light you seared the skies
And caused us all to raise our eyes --
A moment for the soul to wonder,
A moment later came the thunder.

As we watched, you flared anew,
Exploding as you fell from view.
But in your wake, there yet remained
The glimmer of your ghostly train;
And somewhere, just beyond the west,
Your precious fragments still may rest.

Copyright: Christine Kulyk -- Permission of the author is required for the use of this poem, now published in the International Quarterly of Meteorites and Meteorite Science, August 2002, Vol. 8, No. 3.

The Queen's-RASC Fireball Centre is one node in a network of reporting centres under the umbrella of the Meteorites and Impacts Advisory Committee (MIAC) to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) .

If you have seen a bright fireball from a location in Kingston or environs (i.e. the region up to, but NOT including Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal), please enter the information on the Kingston & Area Fireball Report Form. Kingston, Ontario, Canada is here. The Kingston form is temporarily out of service. Please use the national form. Thankyou.

If your location was outside of the Kingston region, please enter the information on the National MIAC Fireball Report Form. National reports can also be faxed to (403) 284-0074 or emailed to fireball@mta.ca.


For more information, see also the North American Meteor Network (NAMN), the International Meteor Organization (IMO), the Dutch Meteor Society (DMS), Space Guard Canada and Peter Brown's (UWO) home page. US Air Force Press Releases which list satellite observations of fireballs can be found here.

Fireballs which deeply penetrate the atmosphere can produce delayed, thunderous sounds. The time delay between the light and sound gives an estimate of the distance to the event (just like lightning/thunder). In addition, there are sometimes reports of simultaneous sound from fireball observers. For some interesting information on simultaneous sounds, see Geophysical Electrophonics or Abnormal Sounds Produced by Meteors .

Canadian Meteorite Catalogue

Fireballs in the Eastern Ontario Region

The meteor trail AUG 23, 1996 (EDT) FIREBALL

Selected other Fireballs Observed from Canada

Jan 18, 2000 8:45 a.m. (PST) Tagish Lake fireball near Whitehorse, Yukon

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Judith Irwin
Associate Professor
Dept. of Physics
Queen's University
(613) 533-2717
irwin@astro.queensu.ca

Last Updated: November 26, 2001