STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 8 September 2014

[Demeter]

14. Small Meteorite Hits Managua

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/world/americas/small-meteorite-hits-managua.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Nicaragua’s government said Sunday that a mysterious boom heard overnight in the capital was made by a small meteorite that left a crater in a wooded area near Managua’s airport.

A government spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, said a committee that studied the meteorite found that it “appears to have come off an asteroid that was passing close to Earth.”

The resulting crater had a radius of 39 feet and was 16 feet deep, said Humberto Saballos, a volcanologist with the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies who was on the committee. He said it was not clear if the meteorite had disintegrated or been buried.

Residents reported hearing a loud boom on Saturday night, but said they did not see anything strange. “I was sitting on my porch and I saw nothing. Then all of a sudden I heard a large blast,” Jorge Santamaria said. “We thought it was a bomb because we felt an expansive wave.”

Humberto Garcia of the Astronomy Center at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua said an asteroid had been forecast to pass by on Saturday. As for the meteorite, he said, “We have to study it more, because it could be ice or rock.”


I WISH I WERE A CARTOOONIST. I'D DRAW A PICTURE OF GOD, ARM OUTSTRETCHED AS IF THROWING, AND UTTERING: "HEAVENS, I MISSED!"