A new study of the Peruvian meteorite has yielded some interesting conclusions that could upend the conventional wisdom about the size and type of meteorites that can strike Earth. Scientists have determined the Carancas fireball was a stony meteorite — a fragile type long thought to be ripped into pieces as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere and then leaves little more than a whisper of its journey. However, the speed of the Carancas fireball, roughly 15,000 miles per hour at the moment of impact, changed everything.