Meteorite Leaves Crater in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan officials say a mysterious boom sound heard around the capital city was caused by a meteor that narrowly missed the airport. The government said Sunday night it had called a special committee to investigate the explosive noise and a crater, 12 meters (about 40 feet) in diameter and five meters deep, near Managua’s international airport. “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,” said local resident Jorge Santamaria. Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said the meteor was “relatively small” and “appears to have come off an asteroid that was passing close to Earth.” Little is known about the meteor, but experts are just pleased that none of Managua’s more than one million residents were hurt. “We need to celebrate the fact that it fell in an area where, thank God, it didn’t cause any danger to the population,” said seismologist Jose Millan.