By: Efran Zhao
A fireball, brighter than any star, soared over Ontario, Canada, and parts of the US on November 19th. The meteor, nicknamed 2022 WJ1, formerly C8FF042, was the sixth meteor that had its impact predicted on Earth.
The meteor was a harmless asteroid around one meter wide. It entered the atmosphere around 8:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, splitting into several meteorites, most of which splashed down into the water at Niagara River and Lake Ontario.
There were around 80 reports of a fireball seen in the Northern US and Canada minutes before the impact on the atmosphere. Many people in and near Ontario said they heard a loud boom. A civilian said on Twitter, “I can still feel it in my chest!”
Mike Hankey, the operations manager for the American Meteor Society, said that news on the meteor started around three hours before the impact. “When these things happen, the astronomy community wants to know where the impact took place and, if meteorites survived, they want to recover them as soon as possible,” he said.
This marks a step closer to being able to predict the impact of meteors more accurately in the future, allowing people time to prepare for it if needed.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/science/fireball-asteroid-toronto-new-york.html
https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/1593912958509367296
https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-hit-canada-mere-hours-after-discovery/