HALIFAX (CP) - Amateur astronomers expecting a meteor shower in the night sky over parts of Atlantic Canada this weekend got more than they bargained for when a mysterious bright orange-red ball appeared. "It looked like a big meteor with a tail on it," said Kevin McPherson, who viewed the object in the sky early Sunday morning from his front deck in West Jeddore, N.S.

"It seemed to stay up there for a long time and we watched it go into the horizon. It was the neatest thing I ever saw."

Mike Boschat, a longtime amateur astronomer in Halifax, also saw the object while at Dalhousie University in Halifax observing the Perseid meteor shower.

"I was taking my exposures (of the meteor shower) and saw it out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was a fireball at first," he said Sunday.

"Little particles were falling off the back part and it went to the southeast.

He later found out on the Internet that the object was a Russian rocket booster re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Maj. Barry Venable, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defence Command, said U.S. Space Command was tracking a rocket body scheduled for re-entry over northern Canada on Sunday morning.

The U.S. army major said the rocket was launched July 20 but he couldn't confirm it was Russian.

U.S. Space Command provides space surveillance data to Norad.

The sighting is a rare occurrence since most boosters drop back to the Earth over remote areas such as the Pacific Ocean, said Boschat.

• Story originally published by:
Montreal Gazette / QB - Aug 13 2001

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