Carancas Impact Event - The Impact Event

The Impact Event

At 11:40:14 local time (16:40:14 GMT) on September 15, 2007, a chondritic meteorite crashed near the village of Carancas in the Puno Region, Peru, near the Bolivian border and Lake Titicaca (see map box on right). The impact created a crater larger than 4.5 m (15 ft) deep, 13 m (43 ft) wide, with visibly scorched earth around the impact site. A local official, Marco Limache, said that “boiling water started coming out of the crater, and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby”, as “fetid, noxious” gases spewed from the crater. The crater size was given as 13.80 by 13.30 meters (45.28 by 43.64 feet), with its greatest dimensions in an east-west direction. The fireball had been observed by the locals as strongly luminous with a smoky tail, and seen from just 1000 meters (3280.84 ft) above the ground. The object moved in a direction toward N030E. The small seismic shock of the impact shattered the windows of the local health center 1-kilometer (0.62 mi) away. A smoke column was formed at the site that lasted several minutes, and gas was seen bubbling up in the water in the crater.

One villager was as close as 100 m from the impact site. He fell from the bicycle but did not get injuries. Small building 120 m from the impact site did not suffer much either besides the roof damage with flying debris.. Carancas impact crater is the only impact event witnessed on the site by modern people.

Soon after the impact, over 600 villagers visited the site and some began to fall ill from unexplained causes, including symptoms of dermal injuries, nausea, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting. On September 20, Peruvian scientists confirmed that there had been a meteorite strike, but no further information on the cause of the illnesses was known. Impact crater specialists have called the impact unusual, and have stated that the meteorite was at least 3 m (10 ft) in diameter before breaking up. The ground water in the area is known to contain arsenic compounds, and the illness was believed to have been caused by arsenic poisoning incurred when residents of the area inhaled the vapor of the boiling arsenic-contaminated water. However, further investigations have led to the conclusion that the arsenic content in the groundwater did not differ from that of the local drinking supply, and that the illness reported was likely caused by the vaporization of troilite, a sulfur-bearing compound present within the meteorite in large amounts, and which would have melted at relatively low temperatures and high pressures created by such an impact.

According to cosmochemist Larry Grossman of the University of Chicago, the aerial lights and explosions reported were consistent with extraterrestrial material.

The loud noise and explosive impact originally led Peruvians to think that the neighboring nation of Chile had launched an attack.