Meteorite impact: Nicaragua government report - Video

"A mysterious explosion that rocked Nicaragua's crowded capital Managua, creating a large crater, appears to have been caused by a meteorite, officials said Sunday.

Amazingly, in a sprawling city of 1.2 million people, the impact near the international airport did not cause any known injuries, but it did leave a crater measuring 12 meters (39 feet) across.

"We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the crater from the impact," said Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute.

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's organization uses to size up earthquakes."

In this Sunday Sept. 7, 2014, publicly distributed handout photo provided by the Nicaraguan Army shows an impact crater made by a small meteorite in a wooded area near Managua's international airport and an air force base. 

Nicaraguan government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said Sunday that a loud boom heard overnight by residents of the capital was a "relatively small" meteorite that "appears to have come off an asteroid that was passing close to Earth." 

Credit: AP Photo/Nicaraguan Army

Nicaragua's government said Sunday that a mysterious boom heard overnight in the capital was made by a small meteorite that left a crater in a wooded area near Managua's airport.

Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said a committee formed by the government to study the event determined it was a "relatively small" meteorite that "appears to have come off an asteroid that was passing close to Earth."

Murillo said Nicaragua will ask international experts to help local scientists in understanding what happened.

The crater left by the meteorite had a radius of 12 meters (39 feet) and a depth of 5 meters (16 feet), said Humberto Saballos, a volcanologist with the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies who was on the committee. He said it is still not clear if the meteorite disintegrated or was buried.

Humberto Garcia, of the Astronomy Center at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, said the meteorite could be related to an asteroid that was forecast to pass by the planet Saturday night.

"We have to study it more because it could be ice or rock," he said.

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.

The site of the crater is near Managua's international airport and an air force base. Only journalists from state media were allowed to visit it.

$248 Billion for Manufacture and Launch of 1,155 Satellites Over Next Decade

Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) Satellite Mission. 

The proposed SWOT mission is a collaboration between NASA and CNES.

In the commercial space sector, business analysts and consultants Euroconsult anticipates a total of 350 satellites to be launched over the decade, most of which will be for the replacement of capacity existing in-orbit.

According to Euroconsult's newly released research report, Satellites to be Built and Launched, 115 satellites will be launched on average yearly over the next decade (2014-2023).

In comparison with last year's forecast, the number of satellites is stable while market value is growing, thus translating the growing economic importance of the sector, for both governments and commercial satellite companies.

Governments all over the world will be responsible for more than 75% of the $248 billion in revenues expected from the manufacturing and launch of these 1,155 satellites.

Governments' dominance of the space industry continues to increase as established space countries replace and expand their in-orbit satellite systems and more countries acquire their first operational satellite systems, usually for communications and broadcasting or for Earth observation and imagery intelligence.

Nearly 90% of the government market value will remain concentrated in the 10 countries with an established space industry, but growth in the government market will derive from new satellite systems in 35 nascent space countries, creating a market of $2 billion on average per year to be provided principally by foreign suppliers as local industry capabilities develop simultaneously.

Rachel Villain

According to Rachel Villain, Principal Advisor at Euroconsult and editor of the report, "governments in established space countries continue to drive innovation for satellite systems with benefits to local industries and the foreign governments to which they export."

In the commercial space sector, Euroconsult anticipates a total of 350 satellites to be launched over the decade, most of which will be for the replacement of capacity existing in-orbit.

These satellites will be equally divided between the geostationary orbit (GEO) and lower altitude orbits (MEO and LEO); 83% of market value remains concentrated in the geostationary orbit, the destination of 300+ satellites operated by 30 commercial companies for communications and broadcasting services.

Still, the constellations to be launched in non-geostationary orbits for communications services and Earth observation imagery should represent a market of $1 billion per year on average over the decade.

Technology advances in satellite payloads and higher competition in launch services allow the continuous improvement of CAPEX efficiency of commercial GEO satellites for communications and broadcasting services.

Electric propulsion will definitively be part of the economic equation, even if only five all-electric commercial satellites are now under construction.

Avoid meteorite fragments: Russian Government tells citicens

Sutter's Mill Meteorite fragments

Russia's authorities on Friday cautioned residents of the Urals to stay away from any unidentified objects after a meteor dramatically burned up above the region, with a precious meteorite apparently plunging into a local lake.

"Russia's emergency ministry warns all residents of the Urals... not to approach unknown objects," the ministry said on its website, listing several numbers for people to use if they found something unusual.

The meteor spectacularly fell early Friday, causing blasts which blew out windows in the city of Chelyabinsk and left almost a thousand people injured.

Televised reports showed footage from the Chebarkul lake, about 60 kilometres from Chelyabinsk, where a circular hole was discovered in the ice, which regional police said was cut by a meteorite.

Local fishermen saw the falling meteor, which disintegrated into seven pieces. "One of them fell on the shore opposite of the (Chebarkul) town, whipping up a pillar of ice, water and steam," the police said in a statement.

"As a result, a giant circular ice hole eight meters (26 feet) in diameter was formed," the report said. Police secured the area and specialists measured radiation, which was normal, it said.

Pictures on the police website showed people standing around looking at the ice hole. One also showed a tiny rock about one centimetre in diameter, laying on ice next to a ruler.

Several such fragments, "hard, black pieces, which look like rock segments," have been recovered, police said.

Classified ad websites quickly had notices put up by enterprising or jestering Russians, offering pieces of the new meteorite for sale. "Two vans of the Chelyabinsk meteorite," said one notice, posted in the "jewelry" section of a Russian website Avito. "Price can be negotiated."

The regional emergency ministry said it had sent people to the Chebarkul area but could not confirm the hole in the ice was caused by an object from space. It also asked people not to panic and keep warm by closing shattered windows with plywood and plastic.

"It's a hole in ice, we have sent a team to inspect (look into) it, but I cannot confirm it's from a meteorite," spokesman of the Chelyabinsk branch of the emergency ministry Vyacheslav Ladonkin told AFP.