Carancas H4-5 Meteorite
Find / Fall: Fall – 2007
Location: Puno, Peru
Classification: Chondrite H4-5
Total Known Weight: 342 g
On September 15, 2007 a meteoroid entered the atmosphere over Lake Titicaca near the border of Peru and Bolivia. But, this was a most unusual event even for meteoroids. Normally a body the size of this one would detonate from the stresses of its tremendous velocity and the air pressure against it. This body however, appears to have been traveling at a strangely slow speed for a cosmic body. It reached the ground intact and created a crater something not normally done by chondrite meteorites. In doing so it destroyed itself into only small pieces. Carancas is a H4-5 type and quite friable. This crumbliness is also hard to explain for a body that reached the ground in one piece. This crater forming chondrite is certainly one of the most interesting new meteorites available for collectors.
