Eyewitness reports of fireball in sky over Maritimes likely meteorite: professor

HALIFAX – A physics professor at Dalhousie University says a bright fireball seen streaking across the northern skies of the Maritimes and Quebec earlier today was likely a meteorite.

Jim Drummond says what are typically called shooting stars are actually meteorites that are heating up as they burst through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Drummond says it’s a fairly common occurrence and those that are seen can be as small as a pea, depending upon what they are made of and how they come through the atmosphere.

Rick Parker, who lives on Mattatall Lake near Wentworth, N.S., says he woke up just before 5 a.m. and saw a bright fireball light up the sky.

He says he only got a brief view before the object fell toward the northern horizon.

RCMP Sgt. Al LeBlanc says he is only aware of one call that may have been related to what was seen when someone in the Truro, N.S., area reported what looked like a yellow flare in the sky.