Radar hunt for meteorite

Danish aircrews are planning to search for the meteorite which fell last week on the southern tip of Greenland by using ground-penetrating radar. New estimates suggest that the meteorite, which streaked across the dawn sky on 9 December, could weigh 50 tonnes or more.

The search area has been narrowed down to roughly 2,000 square kilometres, but the impact crater left by the meteorite would only be about 25 metres across.

Scientists are encouraged though that the object probably did not melt through the ice, which would have hidden it. "A stone like that will be heated at its surface but not very hot once it reaches the ground," said said Torben Risbo, of the University of Copenhagen. "It would just come to rest, and perhaps splinter. There's a whole spectrum of possibilities."

However, it is unlikely that Greenland will be deluged with meteorite hunters just yet - although on the black market they can command roughly the same price as silver, or pounds 4 per ounce.

A meteorite may have triggered a fire that killed four small children in central Colombia, according to reports there. Witnesses said that "fireballs" had rained down from the sky, shortly before the children, all under six, were caught in the blaze in a ramshackle house in the impoverished Huila province.