'Unique' Alberta fireball helps astronomers shine new light on origin of solar system

A hunk of space rock that blazed across the Alberta sky in 2021 is helping researchers better understand a cluster of icy objects floating along the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The fireball sped toward Earth on the morning of Feb. 22, 2021, piercing the dark with a flash of bright blue, a spectacle that was visible across the Prairies. Captured on doorbell cameras across the province, the flash lit up social media.

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Data gleaned from footage of the fireball, which entered Earth's atmosphere near Smoky Lake, Alta., and broke up near Athabasca, 85 kilometres to the northwest, shows it was made of rock, not ice.

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The speed and trajectory of the fall suggest it came from the centre of the Oort Cloud, an immense cloud of icy objects that encircles the Sun at an incredible distance from the blazing star.

All previous rocky fireballs have arrived from the asteroid belt, much closer to Earth.

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fireball-alberta-rocky-meteoroid-research-1.6680644