Dazzling Fireball Over Canada

This dazzling fireball blazed across an aurora-filled sky over remote Canada’s Northwest Territories. From the photographer: “One of the brightest fireball I’ve seen. I was leading one of my aurora photography tours when this blasted across the sky over Vee Lake, Yellowknife where it exploded toward the north. It got so bright that I had to close my eyes, just like someone used an electric flash in front of me. A few minutes later, we could hear a huge explosion sound from the direction of the fireball fell. I am not sure the sound was created by sonic boom or something else.” Fireballs are dazzling meteors, brighter than any of the planets (magnitude -4 or brighter). About one in 1,200 observed meteors becomes brighter than -5 magnitude, while only one in 12,000 reaches -8 magnitude and the meteor captured here seems to be much brighter.