Presumed 'Large Russian meteor chunk' pulled from lake

RUSSIAN divers have pulled from a lake a half-tonne suspected meteorite said to have been part of a meteor that hurt 1200 people in February.

The object is thought to have plunged into Lake Chebarkul in central Russia leaving a 6m-wide hole in the ice.
If confirmed, it would be the largest fragment of the meteorite yet found.
More than 1,000 people were injured when a 17m, 10,000-tonne space rock burned up over Russia on 15 February.
Live footage showed a team pull out a 1.5-metre-long (five-foot-long) rock from the lake after first wrapping it in a special covering and placing it on a metal sheet while it was still underwater.
The boulder was then pulled ashore and placed on top of a scale for weighing, an operation that quickly went wrong.
The rock broke up into at least three large pieces as it was lifted from the ground with the help of levers and ropes.
Then the scale itself broke, the moment it hit the 570kg (1,255lb) mark.
But scientists cautioned that it would take time before they could verify that the rock pulled from the lake had indeed come from space.

You can watch a video of the removal here

If it is the actual meteorite then it's pretty cool to see such a big piece, shame that it broke up whilst being weighed, good job to the Russians! did'nt sound an easy task

Link for more information.

Wow! And to think a piece even bigger than that was tearing through our atmosphere, quite incredible that relatively few people were hurt.

They're quite beautiful to look at, even if it is "space junk", it's junk we could probably learn an awful lot from.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

How cool is that.
Hope there're critters still trapped inside of it, maybe the Earth became home for new species.

reply to post by zilebeliveunknown


Well that's a cool thought. There is some research that suggests that living microbes could survive the trip to earth inside a meteorite.

Link1
link2

It sure looks like a meteorite, must not have been an Iron meteorite, if it broke apart while weighing

I wonder how long now before Putin makes it into a coffee table for his secret lair -

I am going to see how this turns out.

Awfully big to have not cause a lake Tsunami if you ask me.

reply to post by abeverage


The lake was frozen so maybe the direction of impact and the ice cover stopped any tsunami

reply to post by ScottGillan


LOL I ran a calculation on the impact simulator

Tsunami wave amplitude is less than 10 cm at your location LOL

So yeah no severe Tsunami, Man I really thought there would be more damage with a hunk that big!

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


If its an actual meteor why are they touching it without any protection?

It looks remarkably like Joe Dirt's 'meteor'

Agent_USA_Supporter
reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

 

If its an actual meteor why are they touching it without any protection?

lol sorry but your post reminded me of this -

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter


I think meteorites are pretty safe to touch, no more harmful than a terrestrial rock

I seen this on the news for the first time this morning!! And the damage it created, people were hurt, I hope it didn't kill anyone. I call my 12 yr old in the room, thinking he would love this, he wants to be an astro phycisist, anyway, he knew all about it, then went on to show me all the YouTube clips, damage done, and of course he knew how big it was said to be.....made me feel stupid......anyway, I was shocked by the size & damage!!! So, no one seen this incoming??? This seemed to be pretty large to not be pre noticed????? I'm finding it hard to believe the past few meteors, not all, but few, actually hit and were a decent size & no one sent out a warning any of these were incoming. Very scary........sorry if I rambled, I still seem to be a bit shocked by the size & no one tracking it????

reply to post by j.r.c.b.


Firstly, how have you not heard of this before? it was all over the news and web! looks like your son is well clued in

Astronomers have the resources these days to spot almost all the kilometer-size near-Earth asteroids that could wipe us out, its the smaller ones that are tricky to spot, but after the Russian meteorite our governments are more aware than ever.

What else can we do, we sit in a cosmic shooting gallery.

Lady_Tuatha
reply to post by j.r.c.b.

 

Firstly, how have you not heard of this before? it was all over the news and web! looks like your son is well clued in

Astronomers have the resources these days to spot almost all the kilometer-size near-Earth asteroids that could wipe us out, its the smaller ones that are tricky to spot, but after the Russian meteorite our governments are more aware than ever.

What else can we do, we sit in a cosmic shooting gallery.

my son did make me feel like a dummy!!! I'm on this site constantly, I don't know how I missed this one!! I'm sure glad I found this thread today after seeing the news this morning, too see what I missed!!