Young is an astronomer and manager of the planetarium and science gallery at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. The museum is collecting reports of sightings of Friday's fireball, which traveled from south to north over the Northland about 11:35 p.m. Friday.

"We have a couple hundred e-mails, and my receptionist is taking phone calls as quick as they come in," Young said. "I'm sure thousands of people saw it, because it went right over our cottage country area."

Using information from witnesses and the mathematical process of triangulation, the museum hopes to determine the fireball's exact path.

"That intersects the ground at some point, and that's where you go look for pieces," Young said.

If the museum is able to triangulate the fireball's path, it will publish the results so residents can look for its remains. Young believes it likely that parts of the fireball survived their fiery plunge.

"There was a sonic boom heard over the Lake of the Woods area, and that generally means that it has penetrated very low into the atmosphere," he said. "If it does that, then generally pieces can survive."

According to NASA, as many as 4 billion meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere every day, many at speeds about 45 miles per second. Friction with the air causes them to glow. Most meteors are just specks of dust that burn up in a brilliant streak of light.

Fireballs are different. They can weigh pounds -- large enough to illuminate a long path through the sky. Some fireballs, called bolides, explode with a loud, thunderous sound.

Friday's fireball broke into several pieces, witnesses said.

"It broke up into two pieces -- one big ball and one little ball," said Tim Leseman of Eveleth.

Many people who saw Friday's fireball compared it to fireworks traveling horizontally rather than vertically. From any spot, it was visible for as long as 15 seconds.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have been enough time for anyone to take a picture," Young said.

The fireball was seen from places as far afield as Brandon, Manitoba (more than 100 miles west of Winnipeg), northwestern Lake of the Woods (where it appeared to pass directly overhead), Orr, Eveleth, Duluth, the Lake Mille Lacs area and Danbury, Wis.

"Everyone generally thinks it was just over the trees or just over the hills, but when a meteor like this is actually visible, it's usually 20 to 40 kilometers (12 to 25 miles) above the Earth," Young said. "It's way, way up there."

A meteor's chemical makeup and temperature determine what color its glow will be. Many witnesses described Friday's fireball as being green or bluish-green in color (common for a stony meteor), turning to red near the end of its flight.

Chris Magney of Duluth saw the fireball as he walked in the University of Minnesota Duluth area.

"I just looked up, and right there in front of me I saw what looked like a firework," he said. "It was giving off some kind of trail. It wasn't an evenly spaced trail. It was kind of sparking off parts. It looked to be kind of bluish-green."

The fireball was larger than past meteors he's seen.

"This was probably one-eighth or one-tenth the size of the moon -- much larger than any background star," he said. "Just because of the light intensity it must have been pretty hot, whatever it was. It was moving as fast as the shooting stars I've seen."

He watched as it appeared to follow an arc, vanishing over the northwestern horizon.

Leseman was letting his dog out when he happened to look up to the west as the fireball blazed past. It was in sight for perhaps 10 seconds.

"It was the size of the moon and it was moving slowly from south to north," he said. "It was very bright with a long tail, and it looked like it was rolling as if it was burning up.... I got a huge chill watching it."

STEVE KUCHERA can be reached at (218) 279-5503, toll free at (800) 456-8282, or by e-mail at skuchera@duluthnews.com.

Merapi has been giving cause for concern over the last 10 years and in recent weeks the Indonesian government has ordered evacuation for people living on the mountain slopes.

There is normally thought to be no direct relationship between earthquakes and volcanoes, but it is possible for one to influence the other. "The earthquake epicentre was relatively close to Merapi, only around 50 kilometres away, so it is possible that the seismic activity did something to the magmatic plumbing system," says Brian Baptie, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey. "It is partially due to the kind of volcano it is. The lava dome is easily destabilised, with bits collapsing and forming pyroclastic flows."

Although unusual, earthquakes have spurred a volcano into action before, including a sequence of eruptions in Alaska triggered by seismic waves from the Indian Ocean quake on 26 December 2004.

Before the 27 May quake, the volcano was burping clouds of hot ash and gas about 50 times a day. By the next day the number had risen to more than 150, prompting fears that a major eruption could hit the region already devastated by the quake.

From issue 2554 of New Scientist magazine, 01 June 2006, page 4

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The 3,700-foot Sakurajima is one of Japan's most active volcanoes. Clouds of ash constantly drift from its crater. It sits in Kagoshima Bay, about 590 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The volcano's lava dome has swelled in recent weeks, raising concerns that it could suddenly collapse and send scalding clouds of gas and debris into populated areas.

Some scientists say a powerful May 27 earthquake that killed more than 5,700 people in area only 25 miles south of Merapi may have contributed to the increased activity at the volcano.

Subandriyo said the mountain appeared a little calmer than on Monday and Tuesday, but that it was still in a state of flux.

Indonesia's disaster management office said 3,000 people were evacuated Wednesday, bringing the number who left since the alert level was raised to its highest level three weeks ago to nearly 23,000.

Weary Indonesian refugees living in a camp near the mountain said they desperately wanted to return home but fears of a new lava burst and searing volcanic gas have kept them away.

"A hot gas cloud is one of our worst nightmares," said Teguh Rahardjo, 64, recalling how a large eruption in 1994 killed 60 people and decimated houses, fields and animals. About 1,300 people were killed when it erupted in 1930.

An elderly woman who uses the single name Sontani said that after 36 days in the camp, she wants to go home but is afraid her village will be destroyed.

"I saw many big stones, some as big as my house, come down from the crater to our village," Sontani said. "I'm very afraid and prefer to stay here."

Puji Pujiono, leader of the
United Nations disaster assessment and coordination team at the site, said 3,500 people living near the base were evacuated this week, many taken in trucks and cars to temporary shelters. Thousands living nearer to the peak had already been relocated.

Pujiono said a U.N. helicopter was to fly over the 9,800 foot peak later Wednesday, and that a status report would be filed later in the evening, but he did not think the mountain was any more dangerous than it was three weeks ago.

Indonesia is located on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," a string of volcanoes and fault lines that encircle the Pacific Basin. It has 76 volcanoes, the largest number of any nation.

In southern Japan, meanwhile, Mount Sakurajima erupted Wednesday and sent a plume of smoke about 3,300 feet into the air, the country's Weather Agency said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The eruption registered as moderate on the agency's scale for both the sound and the strength of the tremors it caused.

There was no other significant change in volcanic activity, the bulletin said. "We do not believe that a large-scale eruption is imminent," said agency official Akira Otani.

Authorities in the area have received no immediate reports of damage or injuries, according to police official Shoichi Araki in Kagoshima, across the bay from the volcano. Ash has been falling in the city for several days, he added.

The 3,686-foot Sakurajima is one of the most active of Japan's 108 volcanoes. It sits in Kagoshima Bay, about 590 miles southwest of Tokyo.

Then reports came from neighboring villages, where more than 30 sheep and goats fell victim to the vampire. Again, the blood had been drained from corpses but the flesh remained intact. All the slaughtered animals had similar puncture wounds on their necks, different from the marks that wolves, dogs or lynx leave on their victims.

Finally, eyewitness descriptions match the traditional description of the Chupacabra, said to resemble a kangaroo and a dog with huge teeth.

"I heard the sheep bleating loudly, and when I approached the barn I saw a black shadow, like a big dog standing on its hind legs. It leaped like a kangaroo - when it spotted me it ran away," says Yerbulat Isbasov, 18, who guards sheep in the village of Gavrilovka.
Yerbulat saw the beast again in a few days' time, and described it as a 1.2 meter high animal with a hump on its back.

Alfia Makasheva saw a whole pack of vampires in her yard.

"One was a huge reddish thing, another was dark grey, and they were being followed by a pack of pups. In the middle of the yard the red one turned its head and got up on the hind legs, as if it was thinking."

When Dmitry Madinovsky from Orenburg heard about the beast, he suggested it could be the legendary Chupakabra, and set off to look for it. In the woods near the Sakmara river he discovered two rows of tracks that could belong to an animal of some 35 kilos in weight. The tracks were of five-toed paws with claws and webbed fingers, and a tail that dragged between them. Zoologists could not identify the animal from photos of the prints.

"It is definitely a Chupakabra! Small front and big hind legs," Madinovsky says. "The animal first walked on all fours, near the water it got up on its hind legs, raised its tail and leapt away like a kangaroo."

This May Madinovsky and the Urals Anomaly Monitoring Station experts are determined to track the animal down.