Shuttle/Shuttle Concept Restart: Fwd: Huge Meteorite Chunk From Urals Lake

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 17, 2013 2:52:56 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Huge Meteorite Chunk From Urals Lake

Russian Team Recovers Huge Meteorite Chunk From Urals Lake
Russian Team Recovers Huge Meteorite Chunk From Urals Lake
© RIA Novosti. Alexander Kondratyuk
22:12 16/10/2013
Originally posted at 21:07

MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti) – A rock thought to be the biggest fragment so far of a meteorite that exploded over Russia's Urals region in February was lifted from the bottom of a lake Wednesday in a massive recovery effort broadcast live by Russian TV.
"This is the daddy of previously recovered pieces… See this black crust? This is a visitor from space. … The crust is very thick, [with traces of] smelting, rust and dents," Sergei Zamozdra, a scientist at Chelyabinsk State University, told reporters at the scene.
The fragment lifted from the bed of Chebarkul Lake in the Chelyabinsk Region weighed about 600 kilograms (1,323 pounds) before it cracked into three pieces during the recovery operation.
"This fragment was quite big, and, apparently while being pulled, it cracked and split into three parts. However, the two biggest fragments weigh 570 kilograms [1,256 pounds] in total," Chelyabinsk Region Governor Mikhail Yurevich said in a statement.
The exact weight of the three pieces combined is unknown, because the scales broke when the needle reached 570 kilograms.
After being carefully studied by scientists, the biggest fragment will be put on display at a local museum.
"It's a typical meteorite, judging by its appearance – [I'm] 105 percent [sure]. There's no doubt about that, [it has] a thick melted crust, while dents reveal typical structures of the Chelyabinsk meteorite," Viktor Grokhovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences' meteorite commission who examined some previously recovered fragments, told RIA Novosti.
The meteorite, which exploded above the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk on February 15, is estimated to have weighed about 10,000 metric tons and measured about 17 meters (about 56 feet) in diameter. The blast left about 1,500 people injured, mostly by glass shattered by the shockwave.
An operation to recover fragments of the meteorite from the lakebed began in late September. Divers fished out 13 rocks, weighing up to 11 kilograms (24 pounds). Scientists have confirmed the extraterrestrial origin of 11 of the rocks.
"The operation cost us one million and 650 [thousand] rubles [$51,000], approximately," Yurevich said. "The work will stop now; we will leave the smaller fragments for tourists, who might try to retrieve them on their own."
Updated with a scientist's opinion in Para 7
© RIA Novosti.
Meteorite Fragments Hit Russia

© 2013 RIA Novosti

Massive meteorite smashed hole into frozen Russian lake
Russian people stand near a giant hole in frozen Lake Chebarkul that was reportedly made by a meteorite from the Chelyabinsk fireball in February. (Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA)
By Amina Khan
October 16, 2013, 2:10 p.m.
Divers at a Russian lake have pulled out a 5-foot-wide, half-ton hunk of meteorite from the Chelyabinsk meteor that streaked across skies in February. The large black fragment, weighing more than half a ton, smashed a nearly 20-foot-wide hole into the ice covering Lake Chebarkul. It could potentially be the most massive fragment of the dramatic fireball captured on video across the region, and researchers are calling it a once in a lifetime moment.
"It's a once-in-a-100-year event. It's very exciting from that point of view," said meteoriticist Caroline Smith, who curates the Natural History Museum's meteorite collection in London and was following the find's progress. "It's been of great interest to not only me but my colleagues around the world as well."
The rock weighed in at 570 kilograms (about 1,257 pounds) but it may be heavier because it broke the scale, Smith noted -- and broke into pieces in the process as well.
It's heavier than it looks, too, she added.
"When you actually have a look at it, yeah, it's big lump of rock, but it's not actually enormous," Smith said. "Because with meteorites, most of them contain iron and nickel metal. So for their size, they're quite dense rocks."
Even though this is a massive meteorite fragment, it's a tiny portion of the original missile, a roughly 56-foot-wide space rock that traveled about 40,000 mph and vaporized roughly 15 miles above the surface, resulting in an explosion measured between 300 and 500 kilotons, roughly the same as a modern nuclear bomb, according to a Times report. Fragments rained down from the skies and several such meteorites have been collected since then.
This enormous specimen pulled from the lake may not provide any novel scientific information, Smith said, as it appears to be an ordinary chondrite, the most common meteorite to hit Earth. (This doesn't necessarily mean that they are from the most common asteroids in the solar system -- just that, for some reason, fragments from their particular parent asteroids tend to land on Earth more often.)
But in any case, having such a big piece of the original space rock, coupled with all that video footage, is a real boon, she said.
"It's the whole package," Smith said. "It's the fireball plus the meteorite that's interesting, not just the meteorite."
This fragment could possibly be the largest Chelyabinsk meteorite found, Smith said -- other bits tend to be walnut-sized. And yet even this massive chunk (which has reportedly now broken apart) is still a small fraction of roughly 56 feet it was as it plunged through the atmosphere. With that in mind, this find could be useful for scientists wondering what size of space rock could actually do major damage on impact.
"That's interesting because it gives us much more of an insight into actually the behavior of these large objects as they come into the atmosphere," Smith said, "and going on from that, the potential -- or not -- of large objects hitting the Earth."
Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

Lifted From a Russian Lake, a Big, if Fragile, Space Rock
Anton Melnikov/Reuters
Russian officials on Wednesday with the largest fragment so far of a meteor that exploded in February over the city of Chelyabinsk.
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
October 16, 2013
MOSCOW — Russian officials on Wednesday retrieved the largest fragment so far of a meteor that exploded in February over the city of Chelyabinsk, but as divers and a mechanical winch lifted it from the bottom of a lake, the rock broke into three pieces, and then broke the scale — literally — when all together it weighed in at more than 1,250 pounds.
Although a hole in the ice of Lake Chebarkul, southwest of Chelyabinsk, had made clear where the meteorite fragment landed, it took seven months of searching and a detailed sonar analysis to pinpoint its location, at a depth of about 40 feet and covered by about 8 feet of silt.
It then took another month of planning and work to prepare to lift it, a process that culminated Wednesday in front of a crowd gathered on the shore, with the events broadcast live on television.
After divers assured that the rock was secured with ropes, the regional governor, Mikhail Yurevich, hit a button to start the winch that pulled it to land.
As it was recovered, the meteorite fragment — which Russian scientists have estimated is more than 4.5 billion years old, or about as old as the solar system — was caught in a tangle of colorful ropes and cords, almost like an old piece of furniture tied to the top of a station wagon.
"Come on, finish up," an official shouted as a crowd of photographers and cameramen clustered around for a close look. "It will be available in the museum."
Scientists said the meteor was far larger when it entered the Earth's atmosphere, perhaps as heavy as 10,000 tons.
More than 1,200 people were injured, mostly by shattered glass, when the meteor burst into the Earth's atmosphere with a blinding streak of light and a series of sonic booms, before exploding 20 to 30 miles above Chelyabinsk.
Countless chunks of the meteor fell along its path, but what seemed likely to be the main piece left a jagged hole about 20 feet wide in the ice of Lake Chebarkul.
Scientists said that the dark, glassy surface of the rock, known as a fusion crust, and indentations on its surface were the classic markings of a meteorite and seemed to confirm its origins. Officials said it would be analyzed and then placed in a regional museum.
Once in the Earth's atmosphere, meteors can drop fragments all along their path, with the largest typically being closest to the point of impact.
The breakup of the meteorite fragment into three pieces does not diminish its value to researchers, but it does undercut potential bragging rights. The sum total of the fragments discovered in Chelyabinsk has not come close to matching the biggest meteorites scientists have found, which tend to be 10 tons or more.
&lt;img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif"&gt;
A version of this article appears in print on October 17, 2013, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Lifted From a Russian Lake, A Big, if Fragile, Space Rock.

© 2013 The New York Times Company

Giant chunk of Russian meteorite found in lake
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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian scientists have recovered a giant chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteorite from the bottom of the lake it crashed into.
The meteor that blazed across southern Urals in February was the largest recorded strike in more than a century. More than 1,600 people were injured by the shock wave from the explosion as it hit near the city of Chelyabinsk, estimated to be as strong as 20 Hiroshima atomic bombs.
Scientists on Wednesday recovered what could be the largest part of the meteorite from Chebarkul Lake outside the city. They weighed it using a giant steelyard balance, which displayed 570 kilograms (1,256 pounds) before breaking.
Sergei Zamozdra, an associate professor at Chelyabinsk State University, told Russian television the excavated fragment was definitely a chunk of the meteorite.

Copyright © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Huge Chunk of Russia Meteorite Pulled from Lake
By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer | October 16, 2013 12:37pm ET
Fragment of Chelyabinsk meteorite, showing the fusion crust -- the result of a previous collision or near miss with another planetary body or with the sun.
Credit: Victor Sharygin View full size image
Divers raised a coffee-table-size chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteorite from its muddy home at the bottom of Russia's Lake Chebarkul on Wednesday (Oct. 16).
The massive boulder is the largest fragment recovered so far from the Feb. 15 Russian meteor explosion over the city of Chelyabinsk that injured more than 1,000 people.
The blast scattered meteor shards across the region and left holes in the ice-covered Lake Chebarkul, so it was assumed that big lumps fell into the lake. Later surveys revealed possible extraterrestrial rocks buried beneath the bottom mud.
Recovery crews have since pulled five meteorite chunks from the lake, RT.com reported.
The 5-foot-long (1.5 meters) rock dragged from the depths Wednesday was 65 feet (20 m) below the surface. After it was pulled to the surface with cables, the meteorite fragment fractured into three pieces, shown live on Russian television.
Together, the dark, craggy stones weighed more than the scale brought to the lake could read, tipping in at more than 1,250 lbs. (570 kilograms), AFP reported. Preliminary tests confirmed the rocks are from the Chelyabinsk meteorite.
Pictures and video from the retrieval effort show telltale signs of the meteorite's fiery trip through the atmosphere. There's a fusion crust — a shiny, glassy layer of black material that forms when the outer portions of the rock melt. The rock also appears to have regmaglypts, shallow surface indentations that look like thumbprints.
The Chelyabinsk meteorite is a mix of different types of ordinary chondrites, the stony meteorites that crash into Earth most often, researchers have found. The mélange inside the fragments suggests the meteorite may have collided with another asteroid early in its history.
Researchers have estimated that the asteroid that caused the Chelyabinsk fireball was about 55 feet (17 m) wide and weighed 10,000 tons when it streaked into Earth's atmosphere.
It hit on Feb. 15, the same day a 130-foot (40 m) asteroid called 2012 DA14 gave Earth a close shave, missing our planet by just 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers). But the two space rocks are unrelated, experts say.

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