It was recovered from the bottom
of Chebarkul Lake in the Chelyabinsk region, in Russia's Urals, in an operation
covered live Wednesday on Russian TV. The chunk of dark rock, measuring
about five feet in diameter, was dragged ashore by divers who hauled it from the
murky water.
It tipped and then broke the
scales used to weigh it, before splitting into three smaller pieces, state news
agency RIA Novosti said. Andrei Kocherov, of Chelyabinsk
University, said, "If it weighs more than 500 kilograms then the object is
unique in itself and is likely to be one of the biggest meteorites ever
found."
Scientists still have to examine
the rock to confirm its origins in space. "The initial visual survey which
we are talking about now doesn't give us 100% certainty, we still need to
conduct more research, a structural analysis and other tests," said
Kocherov.
Once scientists have had a
chance to study its composition the giant chunk recovered Wednesday will be
placed on display in a local museum, RIA Novosti said.
The lake was frozen over when,
on February 15, the nearly 60-foot-wide space rock plunged into Earth's
atmosphere and exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk with the force of
about 30 early nuclear bombs.
Some meteorites were believed
then to have melted their way through the ice, but scientists had to wait for
warmer weather before they could more fully plumb the lake's depths. Other, smaller fragments have
also been recovered from the lake and other parts of the region.
Amateur video footage from
February 15 showed a bright white streak moving rapidly across the sky before
exploding with an even brighter flash and a deafening bang. The meteor was a
once-in-a-century event, NASA officials said, describing it as a "tiny"
asteroid. With an estimated weight of
10,000 metric tons, it was the largest to hit Earth since the 1908 Tunguska
incident in Siberia, where a meteorite strike flattened a forest.
The blast left more than 1,500
injured, mostly by glass from shattered windows, and raised concerns about
humanity's vulnerability to stray asteroids.
Two months later, NASA announced
a goal of sending a spacecraft out to seize and asteroid and tow it into orbit
around the moon, where it could be studied by astronauts -- a project billed in
part as a planetary defense mission. But it ran into opposition in
Congress, where a House committee voted to block any funding for the mission in
July.
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