I wish someone would calculate the size and weight of the meteor before it entered Earth's atmosphere. This is what is left over.
MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti)
A rock (click here) 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....
