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Friday, March 14, 2008

Streamlined meteorite hit Peru fast and hard


A meteorite that struck Peru in September, digging out a deep hole and startling nearby residents, traveled faster and hit harder than would have been expected, researchers reported on Tuesday.
The object, which left a 49-foot-wide (15 meter) crater, was made of rock and, in theory, should have disintegrated in the atmosphere long before reaching the Earth's surface, said Peter Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island.
And it may have. But the pieces stayed together and were speeding at 15,000 mph (24,000 kph) when they hit, Schultz told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas...

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