Apparent Meteorite Hits Managua, Nicaragua, Leaving Crater But No Injuries

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Apparent Meteorite Hits Managua, Nicaragua, Leaving Crater But No Injuries

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 7, 2014 @11:58AM from the ok-maybe-it-was-a-gas-leak-or-antimatter dept.

A wire report from AFP says that an explosion heard in Managua last night, and a 40-foot crater evident today, are evidence that the city was the impact site for a small meteorite that struck Saturday night. The photos are not very exciting at a glance, which is a good thing, considering that a dirt crater and no injuries is probably the best outcome if a meteorite strikes the city where you live. From the article: The meteorite appeared to have hurtled into a wooded area near the airport around midnight Saturday, its thunderous impact felt across the capital. The hit was so large that it registered on the instruments Strauss’ organization uses to size up earthquakes. “You can see two waves: first, a small seismic wave when the meteorite hit Earth, and then another stronger one, which is the impact of the sound,” he said. Government officials and experts visited the impact site on Sunday. One of them, William Martínez, said it was not yet clear if the meteorite burned up completely or if it had been blasted into the soil. “You can see mirror-like spots on the sides of the crater from where the meteorite power-scraped the walls,” Martínez said. (The same news, in slightly shorter form, from the AP.)

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Hope they're keeping people away by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 12:03 · Score: 1

The last time something like this happened in Central or South America (I forget exactly where and am too lazy to google it) there were toxic gasses released from the soil. IIRC, they determined it wasn't the meteorite that had toxins; but that the impact churned up naturally occurring arsenic or something.
1. Re:Hope they're keeping people away by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 12:24 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  You're quite the expert, aren't you?
2. Re:Hope they're keeping people away by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2014-09-07 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  I think it was Peru. Large amount of arsenic in the ground.
  
  --
  If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
3. Re:Hope they're keeping people away by GrumpySteen · 2014-09-08 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  I believe you're thinking of the 2007 Carancas meteor impact.
4. Re:Hope they're keeping people away by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 01:53 · Score: 0
  
  Um... I mean that's what I've heard. Sorry for the gay confusion. I mean confusion! Just confusion. Nothing gay about it. I don't even know why I said that.
related to 2014RC? by jjeffries · 2014-09-07 12:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Any relation to the asteroid that got well up into our pearthonal space earlier today?
1. Re:related to 2014RC? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 12:19 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Maybe, these asteroids that we detect are usually followed by a "tail" of smaller asteroids and those are too small to detect but they are the ones that actualy make it through the atmosphere.
2. Re:related to 2014RC? by Nyder · 2014-09-07 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  Any relation to the asteroid that got well up into our pearthonal space earlier today?
  ya, the asteroid was hired to make a bunch of noise in the space watching community, so while all eyes were focused on it, some of it's buddies decided to sneak in the back door.
  Granted I know they can't see everything, but it's funny how they make a big deal about how asteroids can hit us, and watching one that won't hit us, while smaller ones don't get seen at all.
  Had that hit a populated area, I imagine a lot of peeps would be say, um, oops!
  
  --
  Be seeing you...
3. Re:related to 2014RC? by ShanghaiBill · 2014-09-07 13:26 · Score: 2
  
  Had that hit a populated area, I imagine a lot of peeps would be say, um, oops!
  It hit a populated area.
4. Re:related to 2014RC? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 14:04 · Score: 1
  
  He probably meant a worst case secenario for a small one like this, like the packed stands of an open air stadium or concert. An event like that would really turn some heads when it comes to asteroid detection.
  Or mayb you'd like something larger, like a tuskunga level event in a heavily populated area that wouldn't raise arguments that it was an attack from another country, so say a small to medium sized city in middle america that has no major stategic assets to speak of so that Faux "News" doesn't have anytihng to pust the dumb to war over it?
The site previously contained.... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 12:25 · Score: 0

a meth lab.
1. Re:The site previously contained.... by TWX · 2014-09-07 13:01 · Score: 1
  
  Then I'm happy that a meteorite struck it!
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
2. Re:The site previously contained.... by MrKaos · 2014-09-07 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  Then I'm happy that a meteorite struck it!
  ba-dom-tish!
  
  --
  My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Maybe you should return to Managua by Warphammer · 2014-09-07 12:26 · Score: 1

You could go unnoticed in such a place. Or maybe not.
1. Re:Maybe you should return to Managua by dccase · 2014-09-07 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  Crap. I was going to say that.
Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by mveloso · 2014-09-07 12:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

Like college age kids, meteors seem to always travel in packs. The Chelyabinsk one was said not to be related to 2012Da/367943 Duende, but it sure is a hell of a coincidence that close flying meteors have an "unrelated friend" that impacts the Earth.
Maybe we got the ugly friend?
1. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by jjeffries · 2014-09-07 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  That's what I was thinking too--we got hit by something's little brother *again*? But OTOH, there's a whole metric crapload of stuff that passes us close by, check this out: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
2. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 12:54 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The reason why Chelyabinsk and Duende were not related is that according to multiple sources they had different trajectories, all they had in common was that they ended up in the same neck of the woods at the same time. What we should take away from this is that meteorites happen all the time, though still mostly not on camera and not in a densely populated areas. The solar system is still very much under construction.
3. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by rmdingler · 2014-09-07 13:55 · Score: 2
  
  Or.
  Since we were watching for a meteor flyby, the explosion and crater are difficult to imagine as merely coincidence.
  
  --
  Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
  Ernest Hemingway
4. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by mveloso · 2014-09-07 18:48 · Score: 1
  
  Different trajectories implies different origins, but I'm sure there's a way to show that they could have had the same origin and got thrown into different orbits...which occasionally intersect with Earth.
5. Re: Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by MickLinux · 2014-09-07 23:21 · Score: 2
  
  I don't think it's a coincidence OR a conspiracy. I think that as a comet or multi-part asteroid approaches close to a planet, it breaks up like Shoemaker-Levy 9.
  As it misses, the different fragments get accelerated at different angles around the planet. At that point, they will end up with vastly different orbits, all focused on the same approximate point in space.
  But from a solar-centric perspective, they all still have the same energy, and thus all have the same period.
  So they hold a reunion of sorts after that, all passing close by each other.
  And if the planet also happens to pass by again, the astronomers can be watching one asteroid, and not see the rabbit punch coming from a completely different direction.
  
  --
  Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
6. Re: Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 03:35 · Score: 1
  
  As it misses, the different fragments get accelerated at different angles around the planet. At that point, they will end up with vastly different orbits, all focused on the same approximate point in space. But from a solar-centric perspective, they all still have the same energy, and thus all have the same period.
  You can't have all of those conditions met at the same time. If the angle changes, it will exchange energy and momentum with the Earth and will have different energy in the heliocentric frame. While scattering things in orbit around a single body will have those objects tend to come back to their point of origin each orbit, any non-r-squared forces, whether from atmospheric drag or non-uniformities in Earth's gravity for satellites, or the fact that Sun-Earth-Asteroid is a three body system, will spread things out (in the latter case, considerably) before their return.
7. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by cusco · 2014-09-08 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  In the case of the previous two, since they were traveling at right angles to each other they were pretty certainly not related. I haven't seen any examination of the path of this new meteor yet.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
8. Re: Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 09:08 · Score: 0
  
  There are two kinds of energy addition: one changes the momentum in its own line, thus changing the energy. One changes the momentum perpendicularly to the motion. That doesn't change the energy. Thus the conditions can all be approximately met, such that the one-two punches come from different directions.
9. Re: Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 13:50 · Score: 0
  
  It is not like there is a 50-50 chance of whether which of those two situations it ends up in. To not exchange any momentum with the Earth, the delta-v vector of the asteroid would have to be perpendicular to Earth's motion, which limits it to a single plane. If that vector is anywhere else in three space, which is a lot bigger than just a plane, it would exchange momentum. You can easily look at the vectors of the two asteroids involved too, and see that it could not have come from such a unlucky alignment too.
10. Re:Coincidence? Or conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 13:53 · Score: 0
  
  More over when another bolide disintegrated as a ball of fire over Barcelona, Spain at around the same time caught on video by one of the 25 surveillance ground stations of the Spanish Meteor Network.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Tablizer · 2014-09-07 12:45 · Score: 1

"warmunists"? No, Bush would call them "warmificationizers". Rework your trolling to make it sound more authentic.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Central Space Command! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 13:09 · Score: 0

To your 3D printers! We must defend the species from the Extinction Asteroid!
Good thing it didn't hit US. by JWSmythe · 2014-09-07 13:19 · Score: 3, Funny

It's a good thing it didn't hit the US. If I've learned nothing else from Hollywood, I've learned this... If any object strikes another object moving faster than about 20 feet per second, there will be a huge explosion.
Except for the very very rare incidents which are strictly for comedic value.

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
1. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by GNious · 2014-09-07 20:34 · Score: 2
  
  I'm glad it didn't hit the US - newspapers would have been screaming "INVASION" or something equally silly for days....
2. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 21:26 · Score: 0
  
  Invasion of the god particle, a novel by Stephen Hawking of CNN fame.
  I'd read it.
3. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 21:33 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  "War against meteorites"
4. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by JWSmythe · 2014-09-08 03:45 · Score: 1
  
  The alien terrorists are bombing us. We need body cavity searches at all airports and major highway intersections!
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
5. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by geekoid · 2014-09-08 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  I wish it did. Preferable the capital building,. I don't want anyone hurt, but maybe it would be a wake up call for better funding to watch of objects.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
6. Re:Good thing it didn't hit US. by cusco · 2014-09-08 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  If it happened in the US there would be an immediate assumption that it was a terrorist attack, even if it just plopped down in a cornfield, and the Pentagon would be invading someone before the first investigators arrived on the site.
  Back in the '80s the Norwegians launched a sounding rocket. All the forms had been filled out, but apparently got lost on some bureaucrat's desk in the Kremlin. The launch path looked like a SLBM coming from the North Sea with a trajectory in the general direction of Moscow. The Kremlin wanted to retaliate for the assumed attack immediately of course, but Yeltsin made them wait until the full trajectory had been confirmed. The world had a close call that day. If it had been Washington down-range Reagan would have launched immediately.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Wasn't a meteorite by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 13:25 · Score: 1

Wilfried Strauch, an adviser to the Institute of Territorial Studies, said it was "very strange that no one reported a streak of light. We have to ask if anyone has a photo or something."
Local residents reported hearing a loud boom Saturday night, but said they didn't see anything strange in the sky.
"I was sitting on my porch and I saw nothing, then all of a sudden I heard a large blast. We thought it was a bomb because we felt an expansive wave," Jorge Santamaria told The Associated Press.
1. Re:Wasn't a meteorite by meglon · 2014-09-07 14:41 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  A light trail, or fireball, comes about from the object heating up and burning off from the friction of hitting the atmosphere. An object moving fast enough will form a bow shock that will punch through the atmosphere and minimize friction. For an object to move that fast, yet make this small of a crater, the object would have to be very small (maybe baseball sized), and most likely have a very steep entry angle (>75 degrees)... but it's very possible.
  
  Back in the 60's/70's when people actually started thinking about collisions, and considering the damage they could do (as well as how to possibly eliminate a threat like Project Icarus from MIT), one book listed one of the worst case scenarios is a large, very fast mover hitting the oceans, as not only would it cause massive tsunami, it's bow shock could push both the atmosphere and the ocean water out of the way, and deliver a direct strike to the crust at a thinner point cause all sorts of problems.
  
  --
  Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
2. Re:Wasn't a meteorite by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 15:10 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  A light trail, or fireball, comes about from the object heating up and burning off from the friction of hitting the atmosphere. An object moving fast enough will form a bow shock that will punch through the atmosphere and minimize friction
  The vast majority of the heating and a large part of the resulting fireball and trail comes from compressional heating of air... that exact bow shock you are talking about is what is responsible for that. Basically all of the air in front that piles up because it doesn't move out of the way fast enough compresses and heats very quickly to the point of being a plasma, and can include significant light emission.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 13:39 · Score: 0

That escalated quickly.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 13:51 · Score: 0

I think that you should deal with the things that were done to you in your childhood, you seem to have some issues.
Excuse me, but ... by gargleblast · 2014-09-07 13:51 · Score: 1

Excuse me, but are you commenting on the Facebook auto-play problem? That was three stories back.
1. Re:Excuse me, but ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 16:36 · Score: 0
  
  Pure gold.
2. Re:Excuse me, but ... by Beardo+the+Bearded · 2014-09-08 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  Excuse me, but are you commenting on the Facebook auto-play problem? That was three stories back.
  Give him a break, he's using IE and this is as fast as he can post.
  
  --
  
  ---
  ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
MOD POINT BUCKET by retroworks · 2014-09-07 13:56 · Score: 1, Informative

Have mod points, but no one says anything interesting? Contribute here to the Mod Point Bucket [MPB] When your mod points expire, we'll owe you.

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Gently reply
1. Re:MOD POINT BUCKET by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 16:07 · Score: 0
  
  WUT. How is this not abuse of the system?
2. Re:MOD POINT BUCKET by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 22:26 · Score: 0
  
  Take that shit to Reddit please.
  This is blatant abuse of the mod system.
3. Re: MOD POINT BUCKET by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 23:45 · Score: 0
  
  mod this post up!
4. Re:MOD POINT BUCKET by Paradise+Pete · 2014-09-08 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't even make any sense. You don't "get" someone's mod points when they mod you up.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 14:01 · Score: 0

You, however, are the enemy of truth, reason and democracy. You are damned to the hateful, rancid, pus filled, lonely, empty existance you were sentenced to for your betrayal of the human race. You are what extremist terrorists are made of, a religious zealot whose only faith is that you aren't a physcopath coward, but you are wrong, and deep down you know it.
Incidentally, no one is scared of you - but they pity you beyond measure.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 14:17 · Score: 0

Any time period the warmunists want to "prove" thre is AGW the warmunists just cherry pick ranges.
Sounds great, let's have dinosaurs around lots of trees. Do dinosaurs taste like chicken?
Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite by Rootbear · 2014-09-07 14:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Managua was hit by a meteoroid. If anyone saw the bright light of its fall to earth, they saw a meteor. If any part of it survived, that's meteorite. Thank you.
1. Re:Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2014-09-07 15:16 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Until they reinstate Pluto as our ninth planet, I'm going to call all those things meteorites. Just to stick it to da man.
  
  --
  If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
2. Re:Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite by Tablizer · 2014-09-07 17:30 · Score: 1
  
  Or "very sized-challenged planets"
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
3. Re:Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite by Cl1mh4224rd · 2014-09-07 17:43 · Score: 2
  
  Obligatory xkcd: Meteor.
  
  --
  People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
4. Re:Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2014-09-07 18:06 · Score: 1
  
  [Monty Burns Voice]
  Excellent.
  [/Monty Burns Voice]
  
  --
  If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Better call ... by PPH · 2014-09-07 14:58 · Score: 1

.... Dr. Stone and his team.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
Re: Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 15:05 · Score: 0

No, you're an idiot. It was Obama and Al Gore. Global warming is just a conspiracy to make them rich and to take over the world. This idea was implanted in Obama's head by shape shifting reptilians when he was born in Kenya, and he has been working to enslave humanity ever since. And he created Ebola and that "meteorite" was really a missile, to distract us from his true mission.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 15:08 · Score: 0

Come at me.
FedNet by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 15:22 · Score: 0

Would you like to know more?
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Sam36 · 2014-09-07 16:11 · Score: 0

Weird, I would not have thought that one would be down voted for such a post...
Imperial by Vlijmen+Fileer · 2014-09-07 16:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Foot" ?
Again? Seriously?? When will this braindead imperial insanity EVER stop???
1. Re:Imperial by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 17:58 · Score: 1
  
  USA loves to be called imperium.
  Seriously, /. should attempt to evolve a bit
2. Re:Imperial by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 02:50 · Score: 0
  
  Rather than complaining about unit selection, you ought to complain about unit conversion. TFA reported "12 meters (39 feet) across" and this was inflated, oddly, to "40-foot" in the summary. My preference would be to have the units as recorded originally reported. Maybe they had someone with a regular gait take a walk around the thing in liu of using a laser or something.
  As to why? If for no other reason, I expect you would move on to complaining about something less trivial. You've taken yourself voluntarily off the front lines to fight a culture sidewar.
3. Re:Imperial by mrgren · 2014-09-08 02:53 · Score: 1
  
  We'll stop using feet as soon as the Brits stop using stones.
4. Re:Imperial by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  Would you prefer rebel units?
5. Re:Imperial by dkman · 2014-09-08 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  The Republicans will never let us stop using the imperial system.
  
  As long as the Republicans are allowed to gerrymander their seats in Congress we won't be able to get rid of them.
  
  Congress will never pass a gerrymandering law because they are the ones who would need to vote on it.
  
  Therefore we will ,unfortunately, never get rid of our egregious amount of BS.
  
  What I would like to see:
  Step 1: Stop gerrymandering
  Step 2: Vote for someone with a clue
  Step 3: Make speed limits and other products have both forms (imperial and metric)
  Step 4: Phase out imperial
  I'm fine with the process taking 40 or 50 years, but let's stop doing nothing.
  
  --
  I refuse to sign
6. Re:Imperial by geekoid · 2014-09-08 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with imperial units is that
  before you know it, you're looking down the barrel of a Death Star.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
7. Re:Imperial by geekoid · 2014-09-08 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  That was the plan. But, you know Reagan and his bogus budget cutting efforts.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
8. Re:Imperial by cusco · 2014-09-08 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  And get rid of Daylight Savings Time.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
9. Re:Imperial by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 13:41 · Score: 0
  
  How come people think that gerrymandering is a Republican thing, and that's the only way they get into office?
  They have to pass laws to get this stuff done. There was a stretch from 2009 to 2010 where both houses (and the President mind you) were Democrat-controlled. They passed a whole bunch of shit. If this is really so egregiously a Republican problem, why aren't you even more angry at your Herdocrats for not getting it fixed then?
Meteorite my ass by wronkiew · 2014-09-07 16:51 · Score: 1

If that's a meteor crater, where's the ejecta? It must have excavated ~200 m3 of dirt, which seems to have simply disappeared. None of the plants surrounding it show any evidence of violent impact, "shockwave", or explosion as reported. Maybe there is actually a crater somewhere, but this is just a photo of some sort of sinkhole?
1. Re:Meteorite my ass by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 17:51 · Score: 0
  
  The hole is only from the little object itself. The shockwave would have been spread over far too much area to be localized on that immediate crater.
2. Re:Meteorite my ass by tragedy · 2014-09-07 19:11 · Score: 2
  
  Trees being uprooted by sinkholes tend to be falling into the hole, not away from it. It's hard to see in the photo, but that tree looks like it's had most, but not all leaves blown off it. As for where the ejecta vanished to, it looks like where it vanished to is the area immediately around the crater. We don't have any sort of before and after picture or a picture of another part of the same wooded area, but the part that we can see seems to be all dirt except for where there are taller trees. It might be the case that there's normally nothing but bare dirt visible, or it might be the case that all the ground covering vegetation is covered in the thick layer of ejected dirt. There also seem to some loose, recently deposited, rocks outside the crater.
3. Re:Meteorite my ass by StripedCow · 2014-09-07 21:35 · Score: 1
  
  We don't have any sort of before and after picture
  You can find the "before" picture on google maps/earth of course.
  
  --
  If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
4. Re: Meteorite my ass by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 00:37 · Score: 0
  
  Go back to watching Ancient Aliens, you troglodyte.
5. Re:Meteorite my ass by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  Hmm. Let's see....(a) No-one saw any streaks of light from the supposed falling object; (b) The location is near an air-force base.
  My money would be on an unexploded munition lying under the soil left over from some training exercise many moons ago....
6. Re:Meteorite my ass by geekoid · 2014-09-08 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  Did you look at the impact crater? YOU could easily spread that little dirt over the areas and it would not be noticeable.
  I've seen tree hit by lightning and the near by bushes look un-touched.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
7. Re: Meteorite my ass by wronkiew · 2014-09-08 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The Nicaraguan govt spokesman says this was a meteorite that broke off 2014 RC. My claim requires only the presence of an over-excited and uninformed public servant.
  
  Coward.
8. Re:Meteorite my ass by wronkiew · 2014-09-08 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  SpaceWeather.com is "skeptical", says it looks more like a hole dug by a backhoe than a meteor crater.
9. Re:Meteorite my ass by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 08:39 · Score: 0
  
  Or a small buried explosive device....say an unexploded munition from a long forgotten training mission. This is near an air-base, after all.
10. Re:Meteorite my ass by tragedy · 2014-09-08 17:18 · Score: 1
  
  I actually took a look at the airport in google maps to see if I could identify the spot. There isn't enough to go on from the article. Some parts seem to definitely have ground-covering vegetation between the trees, but it's less clear in other parts, where it does look fairly brown between the trees. That could just be brown vegetation, however. Overall, the ground in the pictures seems far too devoid of small plants close to the crater. I'm definitely thinking that there's a layer of dirt there covering everything.
11. Re:Meteorite my ass by tragedy · 2014-09-08 17:23 · Score: 1
  
  I found a few other pictures looking around and there's definitely a lot of plants angled away from the crater. It might not have been a meteorite, but it definitely looks like there was an explosion rather than just a backhoe digging.
12. Re:Meteorite my ass by tragedy · 2014-09-08 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  The photos showing soldiers in helmets and vests sweeping the area with metal detectors suggests that they have at least considered it as a possibility.
13. Re:Meteorite my ass by wronkiew · 2014-09-09 15:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, the better photos do show more effect on the plants.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 17:28 · Score: 0

Yes, no foreplay
Taste like chicken? by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2014-09-07 17:46 · Score: 1

Do dinosaurs taste like chicken?
They ought to. Recent research has shown that chickens are the closest living relative of T. Rex.

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
1. Re:Taste like chicken? by jc42 · 2014-09-08 01:21 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Do dinosaurs taste like chicken?
  They ought to. Recent research has shown that chickens are the closest living relative of T. Rex.
  Really? Do you have a reference for the research?
  If it's true that T.rex is closer to chickens than to pheasants, peafowl, and other Phasianinae, it would mean that the Phasianinae family dates back to before the K-T disaster. This would sorta imply a major reorg of the Therapsids, as well as the entire Aves class.
  So it's be interesting to read about the research on this discovery.
  
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  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
2. Re:Taste like chicken? by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2014-09-08 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Recent research has shown that chickens are the closest living relative of T. Rex.
  Do you have a reference for the research?
  If it's true that T.rex is closer to chickens than to pheasants, peafowl, and other Phasianinae, it would mean that the Phasianinae family dates back to before the K-T disaster.
  This was all over the mainstream press last April. I was echoing their over-simplified characterizatoin of the research.
  It's actually "closest living relative among the set of genetic databases they tested", I.e. chickens, sheep, etc. Chickens happened to be a bird they tested, with aminno acid sequences far closer to those of the collagen recovered from T. Rex - nearly identical, in fact, than those of things like mammals. So don't expect this to re-write taxonomy - or to mean that chickens were any closer - or farter - from T. Rex than their close relatives such as phesants.
  Of course there's other evidence that birds were around well before T. Rex. So it may turn out that chickens are closer relatives to T. Rex than, say, bluebirds. (Or maybe bluebirds will turn out to be closer, once they're compared.)
  
  --
  Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
3. Re:Taste like chicken? by blivit42 · 2014-09-09 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  A quick google search turned up the following paper
  
  I wouldn't go so far as to say that chicken is the closest living relative to the T-Rex, just that it is the closest in sequence similarity to this particular collagen protein, out of all of the protein sequences known in 2007 (chicken could have been the only bird represented in the database at the time, but I am not going to take the time to look into this).
  
  I just searched the GVQGPPGPQGPR T-rex collagen sequence given in the text against the NCBI nr database, which is pretty comprehensive. It yielded the following Collagen alpha-1(I) chain perfect matches:
  
  Brachylophosaurus canadensis [dinosaur]
  Tyrannosaurus rex [dinosaur]
  
  Sarcophilus harrisii [Tasmanian devil]
  Monodelphis domestica [Gray short-tailed opossum]
  
  Corvus brachyrhynchos [American crow]
  Gallus gallus [Chicken]
  Manacus vitellinus [Golden-collared manakin]
  Pseudopodoces humilis [Ground tit]
  Anas platyrhynchos [Mallard duck]
  Geospiza fortis [Medium ground finch]
  Acanthisitta chloris [Rifleman]
  Columba livia [Rock dove]
  Melopsittacus undulatus [Parakeet]
  Falco peregrinus [Peregrine falcon]
  Falco cherrug [Saker falcon]
  
  So, that's 11 birds, 1 other dinosaur, and 2 mammals (one placental, one marsupial). The list gets bigger if we relax the sequence similarity cutoff. Based on this single fragment of a sequence, we can infer that T-rex is generally more closely related to birds than to mammals or lizards (and no lizards made the top-hit list), since there were a lot more bird matches than mammals (and the lack of mammal hits is likely not due to lack of sampling relative to birds). This is a big inference to make from a single fragment of a single protein, but I'm reasonably confident that further analysis of additional T-rex sequences would strengthen this finding.
  
  If more sequences have been published since 2007, then perhaps we could get a better idea of which modern bird T-rex is most closely related to, but there is no way to determine this from just the single example sequence above. We cannot say with any confidence that T-rex is more related to chicken than to any other bird, unless a much more thorough analysis is performed using a lot more data. Perhaps this has already been done, but I haven't taken the time to hunt for additional literature.
4. Re:Taste like chicken? by RockDoctor · 2014-09-15 01:53 · Score: 1
  
  If more sequences have been published since 2007, then perhaps we could get a better idea of which modern bird T-rex is most closely related to,
  
  On skeletal structure grounds, T.rex has been considered a sister group to all birds since the 1960s or so. On the basis of it's forearm structure, T.rex is a theropod dinosaur, but probably not a maniraptorinan theropod dinosaur. All birds however are considered maniraptorian theropod dinosaurs.
  We don't have a good understanding of the initial evolutionary radiation of the birds, between approximately the early Late Jurassic and mid-Late Cretaceous, when we find evidence of the early roots of some modern bird groups such as the ratites. There's no particular reason to think that any modern bird is more closely related to T.rex than any other. There probably is one such, but we don't have (and are very unlikely to ever get) enough evidence to really be sure of the family tree to that degree of accuracy. It's like asking if Ronald Reagan is more closely related to Emperor Hirohito, Osama bin Laden, Otzi the Iceman, or Barak Obama.
  I've forgotten what signature I'm using. Is it still the birds ARE one?
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
5. Re:Taste like chicken? by RockDoctor · 2014-09-15 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  I've forgotten what signature I'm using. Is it still the birds ARE one?
  Evidently, yes. Appropriate. I haven't changed it for several years.
  
  It's like asking if Ronald Reagan is more closely related to Emperor Hirohito, Osama bin Laden, Otzi the Iceman, or Barak Obama.
  I suppose I should add an Australian Aborigine and an Amerindian to that list, just to even out the range supplied. Let's say Montezuma (he of the Revenge, for the Amerind) and Ernie Dingo (an Australian Aboriginal TV character, according to my Australian colleague).
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by davester666 · 2014-09-07 18:12 · Score: 1

Foreplay for George was sending people to Guantanamo

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Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 19:57 · Score: 0

This guy is ISIS sans Islamic flavor.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 22:42 · Score: 0

Excellent parody. Could barely tell that you weren't the real thing. 9/10.
Re:Global warming AND Bush did this. by Mike+Frett · 2014-09-07 23:48 · Score: 1

And that is why Republicans always make Wars...
The real question is... by geantvert · 2014-09-08 00:26 · Score: 1

... are Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in holiday in Nicaragua?
Send in the army? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 03:08 · Score: 0

I'm interested in why there's a guy in body armor, a helmet and with a mine-detector in one of the photos.
The mine detector makes sense, if they think there could be some metal in the meteorite.
It could be that the army is the only one with metal detectors close, but why'd he be wearing armor and a helmet?
Central Space Command! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 03:51 · Score: 0

Ready to print Voltron! Activate interlocks! Dyna-therms connected. Infra-cells up; mega-thrusters are go! Recticulating splines!
Let's go Voltron!
Exploding weapons cache by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 10:27 · Score: 0

No meteorite fragments, no fireball.
Various parties hid weapons caches in Nicaragua during the '80-ies. They have exploded before, e.g. In Managua in 1993:
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1996/Arms-Cache-Explosion-Case-Closed-With-Convictions/id-ac87fc8aa836ea44b803cc2af04a99e6
Just saying.....
Meterorite??? by messymerry · 2014-09-08 10:43 · Score: 1

Please explain to your effing media connections that it is an effing meteor unitl it effing stops...then, it's an effing meteorite... Can these so called effing reporters not learn any effing thing???

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Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!