Death by meteorite? NASA is skeptical
It generated headlines around the world -- officials in India said that a meteorite was suspected in the death of a bus driver in the country's southeast Tamil Nadu state. Now, NASA has weighed in and cast doubt on whether a meteorite is really to blame.
The incident occurred Saturday, when an explosion on a college campus was attributed to a meteorite strike. Besides the male bus driver, who died from injuries on his way to the hospital, three other people were injured. Photos surfaced online showing a five-foot crater in the ground where the impact happened. Some reports said the black, pockmarked rock weighed about 24 pounds, while others described it as small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
While this made for colorful news stories -- it would have marked the first human death by a meteorite in at least 190 years -- NASA said in a statement that the explosion was "unlikely something from space."
"To form a crater the size of what has been posted online would have required a meteorite of at least several kilograms," the statement said, adding that meteorites do not start fires or explode when they hit the ground.
The cause of the blast is still under investigation.
