Image of the day: Massive meteorite pulled from Russian lake

Divers working at Lake Chebarkul have recovered a half-ton piece of the meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk earlier this year. 

The fly-over, a viral, online sensation at the time (the YouTube video has been watched more than 38 million times), caused more than 1,000 injuries, broke dozens of windows, and shook nearby buildings before eventually crashing into a frozen lake.

 
Divers have been at work for months extracting bits and pieces of the space rock. Upon the discovery of this particular chunk, the rock was wrapped in a special covering and placed on a metal sheet while underwater to ease with its extraction. It was then pulled from the water using a cable-levee system.

Once on ground, the meteorite was measured and found to be a whopping five feet long. Unfortunately, though, when it was attached to the digital scale for weighing, the rock broke up into three large pieces the moment it hit 1,255 pounds.

Experts warned it will be a while before scientists can certify that the rock they pulled from the lake did, in fact, come from outer space. Divers have already recovered over 12 pieces from the lake since the February 2013 incident, but only four or five turned out to be real meteorites.

Sergey Zamozdra, an associate professor at Chelyabinsk State University, was a bit more optimistic about the discovery, telling the Interfax news agency, “The preliminary examination . . . shows that this is really a fraction of the Chelyabinsk meteorite.”

“This chunk is most probably one of the top 10 biggest meteorite fragments ever found,” he added.

Scientists will now take the space rock to the area’s local history museum, where it will be X-rayed to determine what minerals it consists of.

Story via: bbc.co.uk