Starship Asterisk*

neufer wrote:A 1.5m rock too small to make a 6m hole :!: :?:

What about the splash :?:

Chris Peterson wrote:
Looks real. Still incredibly small compared with the parent mass, of course. And smaller than I'd expect to make such a big hole in the ice from simply falling through at a relatively low speed. I'd be interested in an analysis of that process. Maybe somebody could drop a rock out of a helicopter next year when the ice conditions are similar.

geckzilla wrote:Oh damn, that's really the rock and not a sensationalized fake? Sounds like people with some authority on the matter have confirmed it.

Chris Peterson wrote:
Most people are calling the event the Chelyabinsk meteor, because that's the city that was directly under the terminal explosion and where the ground damage was most severe. I think it's likely that name will stick. The meteorite will be named by the Meteoritical Society Nomenclature Committee, following its guidelines, which generally means naming it after the location where the first individual was recovered. I expect the meteorites will be called Chebarkul Lake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24550941 wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]The fragment left a 6m-wide hole in the frozen lake back in February[/color][/b]

---

Meteorite pulled from Russian lake
16 October 2013 Last updated at 07:20 ET

<<Divers working at a Russian lake have recovered a half-tonne chunk of the space rock that exploded over Chelyabinsk earlier this year. The object plunged into Lake Chebarkul in central Russia on 15 February, leaving a 6m-wide hole in the ice. Scientists say that it is 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 Central Russia, breaking windows and rocking buildings.

Live footage showed a team pull out a 1.5-metre-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 fragment 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 mark.

[b][color=#0000FF]Divers dragged the rock to shore on a metal sheet[/color][/b]

---

Dr Caroline Smith, curator of meteorites at London's Natural History Museum, confirmed that the object was a meteorite from characteristic features known as fusion crust and regmaglypts, which are obvious in images. She told BBC News: "Fusion crust forms as the meteoroid is travelling through the atmosphere as a fireball. The outer surface gets so hot it melts the rock to form a dark, glassy surface crust which we term a fusion crust. Regmaglypts are the indentations, that look a bit like thumbprints, also seen on the surface of the meteorite."

Sergey Zamozdra, an associate professor at Chelyabinsk State University, told 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."

The divers' mission had been hampered by a number of factors. The rock fragment lay at 13m depth, not 6m or 8m as was originally thought. The Vesti 24 rolling news channel reported that divers had already recovered more than 12 pieces from Lake Chebarkul since the incident on 15 February. The station said that only four or five of them had turned out to be real meteorites.

Phil P wrote:The meteoroid struck at 9:12 or so in the morning, not at sunrise. It is unlikely that the cloud in the photo is from the meteoroid.

Steve Dutch wrote:Considering that it intersected the Earth, I'd say "earth-crossing asteroid" is a safe label.

Ann wrote:"Meteoroid" is the piece of space rock that is coming for the Earth, but hasn't yet entered the Earth's atmosphere. "Meteor" is the space rock when it is inside the Earth's atmosphere and has started to glow and dissipate.

Any pieces of space rock that survived the journey through the Earth's atmosphere and can be retrieved on the ground are meteorites.

zbvhs wrote:So, what's the composition of the vapor trail? If it's water vapor, is it terrestrial or is it from the meteoroid? Is it rock dust, vaporized during entry and resolidified in the cold upper atmosphere? Knowing that might provide some clue to the nature of the intruder.

Guest wrote:First off, I vote we need to hold a contest for an official name to actually call this meteor/meteroid/meteorite! :D

My vote is for: The 2013 Chelyabinsk Meteorite. I was thinking to call it The "Great" 2013 Chelyabinsk Meteorite, yet, in all reality -- in astronomical terms and in Earthly impact terms, historically speaking -- it truly did not qualify as a 'super' event, imho.