Paper: Valley Morning Star City: Harlingen, Texas Date: Thursday, April 22, 1976 Page: A6
Largest Meteor Shower Hits Northeast China
HONG KONG (UPI) - More than 100 meteorites, including one that weighed a record 1.9 tons, fell over 300 square miles of northeast China last month in one of the biggest meteorite showers in history, the New China News Agency said Wednesday.
The official news agency said although the area embraced six communes with a combined population of more than 100,000, the shower caused no loss of life or serious damage.
The shower occurred on the after of March 8 when a large meteor - or "shooting star" - entered the earth's atmosphere moving at about 7.5 miles per second. It began to burn as a result of the intense friction and was observed as a large fireball over Kirin City in northeastern Kirin Province.
NCNA said the meteor "exploded in the sky over the Chinchu People's Commune on the outskirts of Kirin City and scattered radially in all directions."
"Judging by the meteorites already recovered, the shower covered an area of more than 500 square kilometers (310 square miles)," the report said.
NCNA said a survey team dispatched to the site by the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected hundreds of meteorites raining in size from one pound to 3,894 pounds, the largest ever discovered.
The report said the last of the meteorites stabbed through nearly two years of frozen soil, sank seven yards into the ground and formed a crater three yards deep and more than two yards in diameter.
Only two previous meteorite showers have been discovered and studied in China in the past 26 years, NCNA said. The first, which occurred during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), was discovered in 1956 in China's southeast Kwangsi Province. In 1972, a shower of meteorites fell in Kirin Province.
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Mark Note: This article refers to the Jilin meteorite.
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