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Scientists confirm fireball in N.W. Honduras was meteorite By ROSIBEL de GUTIERREZ TEGUCIGALPA -- When Pedro Mejia, a young campesino from the village of Pena Blanca in Copan Department, talks about the unusual event he witnessed in Honduran skies on Nov. 22, he says something like this: "It moved like a string of pearls with colorful balls of fire... blue, yellow, red and purple, all blinking on and off." Curiously, Mejia's metaphor coincides with one the famous astronomer Shoemaker made when he witnessed impact of the Shoemaker Levy comet with Jupiter. A bright ball of fire was seen in the skies of western Honduras at approximately 10 o'clock on a late November night. Eye witnesses say it filled the sky with light as bright as day and was accompanied by roars of thunder and, in some areas, earth tremors. Since then, astronomers and geologists from the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the NASA Propulsion Laboratory and the governments of Spain and the Czech Republic have performed five field surveys of the area. In addition to eye witness testimonies, scientists have been investigating a number of burned fields, perforations in the earth and rock samples that have been collected. On the final research trip, coordinated by Maria Cristina Pineda of Honduras' National Astronomical Observatory and Czech specialist Dr. Burovicka, scientists finally confirmed what they had suspected all along: the phenomenon was a meteorite. Not only has the event now been officially classified worldwide, the meteorite has also been named after the country in which it landed: Meteorite Honduras. The trajectory of the space rock was wide. Pineda told Honduras This Week that fragments and other evidence were left along a long corridor in western Honduras. In the village of Santa Elena in Copan department, "we found some burnt bean fields and trees," says Pineda. "Continuing north, there were people in the village of Veracruz who felt bodily discomfort for a week and in places farther north in San Joaquin and Peņa Blanca there are sites with even more evidence." A hill called Cerro Azul near the village of Pena Blanca revealed a vast terrain of burn marks and craters, she said, adding that "eye witness reports vary from sightings of a single brilliant object to a number of fragments moving together. In the village of San Antonio, we found not only fragments of the meteorite, but also places that showed physical impact and cracks." Now that scientists have confirmed the phenomenon was a meteorite, they must begin the arduous process of delving through all of the evidence that has been collected to learn more about Honduras' visitor from space. But they've also got other mysteries to solve. A large landslide that also appeared on Nov. 22, just outside the village of San Luis in Santa Barbara department, was originally thought to have been related to the meteorite. "But after performing a thorough investigation, we have come to the conclusion that this event was totally independent," says Pineda. "We'll have to do more research in that area to find out what happened there." Another mystery was uncovered during the fourth field trip to the meteorite zone, this time in the department of Yoro. There, witnesses also reported seeing another large ball of fire flying through the sky, this time around 2 p.m. Whatever it was, "it disintegrated for the most part and only a very small amount of residue has been found. It's going to be hard work because only two milligrams of matter have been found," says Pineda. Certain that the afternoon fireball was unrelated to the meteorite, scientists are also studying the reports of local witnesses and a crater that may mark a landing spot to uncover the source of this phenomenon. "We believe that we are dealing with several different events and there's a lot of tough work ahead of us," says Pineda. But it's all in a day's work for an astronomer. "We must continually watch out for our planet," she says. Proud of their newly dubbed Meteorite Honduras, the people of this country see the phenomenon as a link to the future as well as the past. Not only does the meteorite put Honduras on the map for future astronomical research, it is also a vivid reminder of Honduras' ancestors: the ancient Maya, some of the most advanced astronomers known to this earth. |
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