‘Bright as the full moon’: Bolide meteor streaks across B.C. sky

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:02]We know the stars and planets are always up there, but once in a while the universe decides to give us a little wake-up call. It's not always easy to get science into everybody's life.

[00:00:12]Because when you're driving past VGH on the Trans-Canada at 12:12 a.m. and this happens, you notice. Oh, wow. Yeah. Last night while the early birds dreamt of their worms, the night owls got a show.

[00:00:24]At Royal Victoria Yacht Club, you saw this. Here's the blast of light over Ross Bay and into Feo know what was even better in Cox Bay. This was a big one.

[00:00:33]And it lit up Long Beach. A meteor that could be as small as a grain of sand or as big as a football put on a show about 100 km above the Earth's surface. We're looking at it from Victoria, it was probably 150 km away.

[00:00:49]Uh, they think that it went from about Port Alberni to over Bamfield. Randy Enkin is past president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. His day job is terrestrial. As a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada, he specializes in one planet.

[00:01:05]Planet Earth and I'm very, very passionate about that one. And these little broken-up bits of commentary trash blazing toward Earth is also the passion of astronomer Dave Balam. He's been at it 50 years and tracking meteors has never been easier. Thanks to the space-age technology on your dashboard, your doorbell, and in your pocket. You know, we're in an age now where everyone seems to be carrying a video camera.

[00:01:26]Now, for guys like me, that's a really good thing. Balam says the meteor was spotted as far north as Hunter Balam House and as far south as these videos show us from Washington state and Oregon. How we can see a grain of sand in the Earth's upper atmosphere melts the average mind. Dave's not average.

[00:01:41]It's an object that's moving at, uh, you know, 20, 30, 40 km per second.

[00:01:47]You know, and so that's a lot of energy involved there and when it hits the atmosphere, it really lights the place up. Not unlike the fireball in March that taught us some valuable facts. You know anything about meteors?

[00:01:59]They're in space. Meteors will never cease to make us wonder, but zoom out and those questions get bigger.

[00:02:06]Going to figure out where we are?

[00:02:09]I I hope not.

[00:02:11]>> [laughter] >> Don't let the fact that our galaxy is racing through the universe at 2.1 million km an hour throw you off your axis. Just stay curious. If you're outside at night, keep your eye on the sky. And enjoy the show.