How a misbehaving meteorite changed the rules

by Rich Bowden - Mar 12 2008, 03:40

A fast-travelling meteorite which struck a region near the Peruvian/Bolivian border in September 2007, should according to standard theory, have disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere long before reaching the ground.

The fact that the rock meteorite didn't perform as expected and instead crashed to earth leaving a deep 49-foot-wide (15 meter) crater, means scientists must now rethink their meteorite theories, said Peter Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Addressing the 39th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas on Tuesday, Schultz said the meteorite acted, "completely inconsistent with our understanding [of] how stony meteorites act.”

His Brown University team found the meteorite acted contrary to expectations in that it did not appear to lose speed through atmospheric friction and did not disintegrate into dust as a normal meteorite of this size was expected to do.

“Normally with a small object like this, the atmosphere slows it down, and it becomes the equivalent of a bowling ball dropping into the ground,” Schultz said. “It would make a hole in the ground, like a pit, but not a crater. But this meteorite kept on going at a speed about 40 to 50 times faster than it should have been going.”

He added that any fragments which may have been dislodged, continued to be swept along in its path.

“It became very streamlined and so it penetrated the Earth’s atmosphere more efficiently,” Schultz theorised.

Schultz also added his team investigated rumours that people living near the crater became sick as a result of the impact.

"That is one of the reasons we went down. We wanted to distinguish fact from fiction," Schultz says. "These reports of all these people being sick were grossly exaggerated. They didn't get sick. They were surprised."

The  errant behaviour of the meteorite may give a better understanding of how lakes, ponds and craters were formed both here on Earth and on planets such as Mars said Schultz.

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