Meteorite Causes Illness in Peru

eldavojohn writes "A meteorite struck in Peru on Saturday leaving cinders, rock & water boiling out of the ground. Villagers nearby reported headaches & vomiting and attributed it to the event. From the article, 'Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.' It's not yet clear whether this is from the meteorite, gas trapped underground that was released or a chemical reaction between the two."

Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[BWJones (18351)]

Ah, I suspect this was either not a meteorite or there is something else going on given that any meteor leaving a 30 meter wide and 20 foot deep crater (meteor being approximately 30 inches wide) [arizona.edu] is not going to hit the ground steaming hot. On the contrary, it will be cold as ice (or colder) given its composition and time for heating. However, I suppose it could also be a re-entry event from a satellite carrying a toxic payload like plutonium... After all, we have the remnants of many satellites and the debris associated with them still in decaying orbits and you can easily spot many of them [utah.edu]. Some satellites particularly those from the former Soviet Union and China have a history of toxic components. Though I suspect we'll know soon enough if it were a satellite, it would have been tracked by numerous agencies and individuals who monitor that sort of thing.

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

PU-238 would be an unlikely source of problems of this sort. Most of the radiation is Alpha Particles which are easily rejected by human skin. (Alpha particle dangers are almost entirely due to internal consumption.) Even if we take possible Gamma and X-Ray emissions from long decay into account, the people who were near the meteor shouldn't feel sick until an hour or two after the exposure.

According to the article (coral cache [nyud.net]), the problem was a "strange odor" that caused the headaches and vomiting. Such an odor suggests a strong chemical of some sort that has been aerosolized near the point of impact. The officials will probably send out a Hazmat team, take air samples, collect the debris from the crash and investigate the exact composition. (Assuming that the authorities have the necessary resources. Otherwise they'll probably get someone to dispose of it and let the air clear.)

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[MarsDefenseMinister (738128)]

My vote is hydrazine. If you can smell that stuff, it'll make you sick. Sick from toxic effects of the chemical, not just sick to your stomach.

http://www.epa.gov/ttnatw01/hlthef/hydrazin.html [epa.gov] describes the effects, which seem similar to what these South Americans are experiencing.

Perhaps Nickel Vapour

[ackthpt (218170)]

If the meteorite was of Iron/Nickel composition there's a good chance a fair amount of nickel was boiled off and carried into the area, possibly some produced by the head of the impact and blast.

Please see: Toxicity Summary for NICKEL AND NICKEL COMPOUNDS [ornl.gov]

Acute inhalation exposure of humans to nickel may produce headache, nausea, respiratory disorders, and death (Goyer 1991, Rendall et al. 1994).

Re:Perhaps Nickel Vapour

[Otter (3800)]

No one has mentioned what I think is the likeliest explanation: hysteria unrelated to any physical cause.

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[iamlucky13 (795185)]

There isn't a man-made object in space that could create a crater like that. The big ones like the ISS are too low density. The high density ones like the Russian Cosmos nuclear satellites aren't big enough. All of them would have a shallow entry angle that would result in a low velocity for anything that did hit the ground.

As you speculated, when events like this are reported, the various space agencies are usually very quickly able to identify possible satellites that may have entered during a given time frame. For example, a Russian booster entered over my home county about 10 years back. It had already been identified the next morning. Incidentally, it burned up completely. No crater.

Regarding a plutonium carrying satellite. Although I've mentioned such couldn't account for such a crater, there have been quite a few put into space. Cosmos 954 [wikipedia.org], which failed to reach orbit and disintegrated over Canada (note that it was not designed to survive re-entry) is a notable example, but the Russians built dozens of these satellites. Actually, the Cosmos RORSATS were powered by uranium-fueled nuclear reactors, not plutonium RTG's. Anyway, when the RORSATS reached the end of their life, the fuel bundle was actually ejected by a small rocket into a 1000 km disposal orbit, which will delay their re-entry by several hundred more years. I suppose most of the satellite bodies themselves have already re-entered.

Interestingly, this has been found to be a rather major source of space debris, as some of the liquid sodium coolant was ejected simultaneously with but free from the core. Once free from the heat of the reactor, the liquid sodium hardens into little metal spheres.

nonsense

[name_already_taken (540581)]

And the Titanic was built to not sink, and Chernobyl was built not to melt down, and Challenger was built not to explode, and the Tacoma Narrows bridge was built not to collapse, etc, etc, etc...

Ok, let's refute your specious points one by one.

The Chernobyl reactor that failed was not built to not melt down - and it was being operated outside of its designed normal operating envelope which is what actually caused the catastrophic failure. Hell, the thing didn't even have a containment vessel.

The Space Shuttle Challenger didn't initiate the explosion, the solid rocket boosters did, which was because they were being used at too cold of an environmental temperature and, against warnings from the manufacturer, the shuttle was launched anyway (human error once again, but not in the design, in the use of the machine in question).

The Tacoma Narrows bridge apparently was not designed not to collapse - the designer failed to factor in the high wind speeds in the Tacoma Narrows and the resulting resonant effect on the structure into the bridge design.

In other words, your post is a bunch of pointless fear mongering along the lines of "humans can't do anything right". That is complete and utter nonsense - humans design things that work in extreme circumstances all the time. You might as well have said "Won't somebody think of the children!?!?".

Re:Bridge failure

[Technician (215283)]

The Tacoma Narrows bridge apparently was not designed not to collapse - the designer failed to factor in the high wind speeds in the Tacoma Narrows and the resulting resonant effect on the structure into the bridge design.

Before you re-write history, check the news reports of the day. It wasn't a very windy day. The bridge was stable at much higher winds. The moderate wind and the direction was just right to produce a resonant feedback. It wasn't high winds that too the bridge down. It was steady mild wind that kept putting more motion into a resonant system.

References;

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bridge/meetsusp.html [pbs.org]
  At the time it opened for traffic in 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in the world. It was promptly nicknamed "Galloping Gertie," due to its behavior in wind. Not only did the deck sway sideways, but vertical undulations also appeared in quite moderate winds. Drivers of cars reported that vehicles ahead of them would completely disappear and reappear from view several times as they crossed the bridge. Attempts were made to stabilize the structure with cables and hydraulic buffers, but they were unsuccessful. On November 7, 1940, only four months after it opened, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in a wind of 42 mph--even though the structure was designed to withstand winds of up to 120 mph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge [wikipedia.org]
The wind-induced collapse occurred on November 7, 1940 at 11:00 AM(Pacific time), due partially to a physical phenomenon known as mechanical resonance. [4]

And for sake of balance here is a modern study stating it wasn't resonance but instead a negative feedback;
http://www.ketchum.org/wind.html [ketchum.org]
" . . . in many undergraduate physics texts the (1940 Tacoma Narrows bridge) disaster is presented as an example of elementary forced resonance . . . Engineers, on the other hand, have studied the phenomenon . . . and their current understanding differs fundamentally from the viewpoint expressed in most physics texts. In the present article the engineers' viewpoint is presented . . . It is then demonstrated that the ultimate failure of the bridge was in fact related to an aerodynamically induced condition of self-excitation or "negative damping" . . . This paper emphasizes the fact that. physically as well as mathematically, forced resonance and self- excitation are fundamentally different phenomena.

The one common thread in all the above is it was not a high wind that took the bridge down. It was the feedback pumping energy into the motion.

Re:Plutonium thermal generators

[CrimsonAvenger (580665)]

Chernobyl was a know bad design before it was built.

No. Chernobyl had issues, but the reason it melted down was that ALL of the safety features were disabled to run a test for the Soviet equivalent of the NRC.

The test in question was meant to determine how much power could be extracted from a nuclear plant in meltdown. Which information would allow them to plan better for dealing with meltdowns, should one happen.

Alas, to put Chernobyl into the near-meltdown condition required for the test, they had to disable all of the safety interlocks, then push the plant to the brink of a meltdown.

And when you push a nuclear plant to the brink of meltdown with ALL of the saftey interlocks disabled, bad things can happen.

Re:Plutonium thermal generators

[fireylord (1074571)]

partially true, but what supposedly caused the major problem afair was the technicians noticing the runaway chain reaction and dropping the control rods in a panic, which happen to have graphite tips (a pretty exclusively used moderator material). This caused a sudden and massive spike in reaction, and heat generation which was not removed because of the fact that the reactor was almost shut down. This caused the explosion.

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

Most of them.

No, sorry. That's horrendously incorrect. There have only been a handful of missions that used RTGs as power sources. Most satellites rely on Solar Power and batteries to operate. The reasoning is simple: Nuclear materials are EXPENSIVE. Far too expensive for anyone other than NASA to use. And NASA only uses them for very specific missions where no other option is feasible. (For example, while the current rovers have a few grains of plutonium to keep the joints from freezing on Mars, they are still powered by solar panels. The follow-up mission was supposed to use RTGs to provide a longer-lasting robot, but that's being reevaluated in light of the longevity of Spirit and Opportunity.)

Wikipedia has a list of RTGs and their missions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#RTG_models [wikipedia.org]

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[CheshireCatCO (185193)]

Far too expensive for anyone other than NASA to use.

Almost true. Lose one of the A's and you'd get another agency that's known to use RTGs on satellites. (Shortly after 9/11, the plutonium that was to be used for New Horizons was suddenly reallocated to an "unnamed Federal agency". It wasn't NASA, New Horizons was their only mission to the outer solar system being prepared just then. Most people were able to conclude, reasonably, that the RTGs were heading for spy sats.)

Re:Andromeda Strain!!! or not...

[TooMuchToDo (882796)]

This is incorrect. Very few satellites in earth orbit use any sort of RTG power source. Only satellites that are destined for the outer reaches of the solar system use RTGs, as the power available from the sun is inadequate at those distances.

There is an exception to this rule though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Use [wikipedia.org]

By comparison, only a few space vehicles have been launched using full-fledged nuclear reactors: the Soviet RORSAT series and the American SNAP-10A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT [wikipedia.org]

Radar-equipped Ocean Reconnaissance SATellite or RORSAT is the western name given to the Soviet Upravlyaemyj Sputnik Aktivnyj ( ) (US-A) satellites. These satellites were launched between 1967 and 1988 to monitor NATO and merchant vessels using active radar. RORSATs were launched under cover name of Cosmos satellites. Because a return signal from a target illuminated by a radar transmitter diminishes as the inverse of the fourth power of the signal emitted, for the surveillance radar to work effectively, RORSATs had to be placed in low earth orbit. Had they used large solar panels for power, the orbit would have rapidly decayed due to drag through the upper atmosphere. Further, the satellite would have been useless at night. Hence the majority of RORSATs carried type BES-5 nuclear reactors fuelled by uranium-235. Normally the nuclear reactor cores were ejected into high orbit (a so-called "disposal orbit") at the end of the mission, but there were several incidents, some of which resulted in radioactive material re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Fungus is among us

[dattaway (3088)]

Looking at the pictures, the ground looks like a prime area for fungus to release spores when disturbed, like anthrax.

Re:Fungus is among us

[TobyRush (957946)]

Let me know when the Space Spore Zombies show up...

Um, okay, but you're going to need to give us an e-mail address or something.

I'm not saying they've shown up yet, I just want to be prepared. Because when they do show up, and everyone is going to be running around and freaking out and trying to shoot space spore zombies with hastily loaded rifles and everything, they're going to be thinking, "Aw, crap, that one guy on Slashdot asked us to let us know when this happens, and we totally are letting him down!" But not me, man. When those zombies start clawing on my door, first thing I'm gonna do: I am going to LET YOU KNOW.

Headaches?

[smitty97 (995791)]

If I got hit with a metorite, I'd have a headache too

(Almost) Useless without pics

[blind biker (1066130)]

Now tell me: who here doesn't want to see the darn crater? Of all things in TFA, what I really missed is a picture of the crater that the alleged meteorite created. Just seeing it would give us some idea of whether it was a meteorite at all, and if so, how big.

Re:(Almost) Useless without pics

[ObjetDart (700355)]

Maybe this will help:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,2171920,00.html [guardian.co.uk]

Different facts, JPL?

[FozE_Bear (1093167)]

Anyone else think it's odd that this article calls it a 10meter crater (30ft) but the Physorg article calls it a 30 meter crater? Was JPL involved in some metric conversions?

Photo

[PhotoGuy (189467)]

Better article [ninemsn.com.au] with a photo of the impact site. Quite an impressive hole. One hopes it's just some underground gas, and not the realization of Andromeda Strain [wikipedia.org]...

too much TV

[LM741N (258038)]

now that Britney has made her way on TV in S. America, there have been waves of vomiting and sickness.

The SCO meteorite?

[Ang31us (1132361)]

Here's a picture [yahoo.com] of what it looked like as SCO streaked across the sky and made that big, noxious, radioactive hole in the ground! ;-)

Plain dirt isn't healthy

[redelm (54142)]

A crater that size throws a lot of dirt in the air. Dirt is full of pathogens that may stress individuals.

Worse if it hits a guano site, town dump or septic landfarm.

Re:Confirmation on this one?

[Goaway (82658)]

Even if it is "true", it is more likely than anything else mass hysteria.

Re:Sounds Like Commander Data's Work

[Rob the Bold (788862)]

It comes full circle. According to the Memory Alpha episode summary you cited, the episode bore a very close resemblance to actual events in Brazil in 1987 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [wikipedia.org].