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Experts Say Meteorite Hit In Peru

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The Associated Press

Published: September 21, 2007

LIMA, Peru - Peruvian astronomers said Thursday that evidence shows a meteorite crashed near Lake Titicaca over the weekend, leaving an elliptical crater and magnetic rock fragments in an impact powerful enough to register on seismic charts.

As additional astronomers learned more details, they too said it appears likely that a legitimate meteorite hit Earth on Saturday - a rare occurrence.

The Earth is constantly bombarded with objects from outer space, but most burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the planet's surface.

Only one in a thousand rocks that people think are meteorites turn out to be real, according to Jay Melosh, an expert on impact craters and professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona.

'It begins to sound more likely to me that this object could indeed be a meteorite,' Melosh said Thursday.

Such impacts are rare, and astronomers still want to do other tests to confirm the strike.

More details emerged when astrophysicist Jose Ishitsuka of Peru's Geophysics Institute reached the site about 6 miles from Lake Titicaca. He confirmed that a meteorite caused a crater 42 feet wide and 15 feet deep, said the institute's president, Ronald Woodman.

Ishitsuka recovered a 3-inch magnetic fragment and said it contained iron, a mineral found in all rocks from space.

The impact also registered a magnitude-1.5 tremor on the institute's seismic equipment - that's as much as an explosion of 4.9 tons of dynamite, Woodman said.

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