Meteorite of Carancas challenges scientists

The meteorite that crashed in Carancas, Puno, in southeastern Peru, creating a 26-foot wide crater in September 2007, broke the thesis that only metal meteorites reach the ground without disintegrating. According to Peter Schultz, geology professor at the Brown University in Rhode Island, in theory, this rock meteorite should have disintegrated in the atmosphere way before reaching ground; however, it came down in one piece and may have crashed at 24,000 km per hour.

A small object like the Carancas meteorite, with the size of a basketball, usually slows down in the atmosphere and when it reaches ground it makes just a small hole, not a crater. This meteorite came down “at a speed 40 to 50 times faster than it should have been going” (Peter Schultz, 2008).

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2008/03/carancas-meteorite
http://www.terra.com.pe/noticias/noticias/act1171197/meteorito-puno-destroza-teorias-cientificas.html