I’m fascinated by meteorites. I love the idea that the dinosaurs most likely met their downfall as the result of a humungous meteorite smashing into planet Earth. It also sends a shiver down my spine thinking that something to end humanity’s grip on the planet could be heading our way right now.
That’s why the news that a meteorite had landed in Peru a week or so ago got me interested. It seems Peruvians near Carancas in the Puno region of the country woke up to find a crater 20 metres wide and 7 metres deep had suddenly appeared. Things got even more interesting when the locals started complaining that they had fallen ill with headaches and nausea after they had gone to visit the crater. All very War of the Worlds.
However, the Russian news agency Pravda says it wasn’t a meteorite at all but was an American satellite that had been spying on the Iranians which had crash landed. The cause of the illness, they say, is the satellite’s plutonium power source. The Cold War is alive and well it seems.
