Peruvian Meteorite Revisited

Last September, as reported in this blog, local people in Peru reported a meteor crashing into the ground in a remote area of the country. At the time, the scientific establishment tended to discount the story. Now, however, scientists are trying to work out how it happened.

Boston University planetary geologist Peter Schultz visited the area in Peru where the meteor supposedly fell and discovered a 40-foot wide crater complete with fractures in the ground and tiny fragments of what he has identified as a stony meteor. It seems the local people were right, after all.

From the evidence, Schultz estimates the body was moving at 15,000 miles an hour when it hit the ground, which is far faster than physicists would have predicted. Indeed, the laws of physics seem to say a stony body of that size traveling at that speed would burn up in the atmosphere. Well, apparently not always. The challenge now is to understand how this one made it all the way down. Early speculation is that perhaps this rock happened to have an aerodynamic shape that allowed it to cut through the atmosohere before burning up.

Illnesses were reported that seemed to be connected to the impact, but they too were discounted at the time. Perhaps scientists should remember the basics of their endeavor-- investigate first, discount second.