A meteorite slammed in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua on 6 Sept., creating a shock wave that surprised local residents. The space rock created a crater nearly 40 feet wide and 16 feet deep, after crashing outside the city's international airport. Impact took place at 11:05 p.m. local time.
The meteorite, or what remains of it, still awaits discovery. The rocky body may have broken up on impact, or become lodged deep in the ground. Researchers are not even sure of the composition of the body, are seeking to determine if it was made of up of mostly rock or ice.
"All the evidence that we've confirmed on-site corresponds exactly with a meteorite and not with any other type of event. Firstly, we have the seismic register which coincides with the time of impact, and the typical characteristic that it produces a cone in the place of impact," Jose Millan of the Nicaraguan Institute of Earth Studies (Ineter) said.
No one was injured in the blast, and the government in Managua has requested the United States government for assistance investigating the event. Impacts this size typically happen about once per year, and could devastate a house, with potentially fatal results.
Nicaragua is a geologically-active country, containing over 20 volcanoes, and earthquakes are common there. When the asteroid struck the Earth, many locals believed they were hearing the sound of an eruption.
"I was sitting on my porch and I saw nothing, then all of a sudden I heard a large blast. We thought it was a bomb because we felt an expansive wave," Jorge Santamaria, an eyewitness to the event, said.
This relatively small meteorite may have broken off of a larger space rock, according to early analysis, possibly 2014 RC, which passed within 25,000 miles of our planet on 7 Sept. Still, a rocky body large enough to create such a sizable crater should have created a bright fireball across the sky. So far, there are no reports - or images - of any such event. The average "shooting star" is created by fragments of rock, roughly the size of apple seeds.
Due to the proximity of the crater to the airport, as well as a nearby air force base, the only journalists allowed to visit the site were those employed in the state-run media.
"We need to celebrate the fact that it fell in an area where, thank God, it didn't cause any danger to the population," Millan told the press.
