On February 15, 2013, a meteor shower hit the Chelyabinsk region. At 9:20 local time, a meteorite exploded in the sky, 30-50 km from Earth. The shock wave broke windows in houses, hospitals, kindergartens, and schools. Shop windows burst. Meteorite fragments damaged buildings.

More than 1,000 people went to hospitals with cuts and bruises, some of them were hospitalized in serious condition. According to residents, a trail first appeared in the sky, as if from a jet plane, and then “the sun began to shine.”

“I taught a physical education class in kindergarten and saw in the window in the sky white stripe, and then there was a bright flash,” Lyudmila Belkova, a resident of Chelyabinsk, told Gazeta.Ru. —

I shouted to the children: get down on the floor! Close your eyes! And then there were about five or six more explosions. One of the kids raised their head, but I shouted at them to close their eyes.”

The shock wave was very hot, residents said. And a metallic taste remained in the mouth even several hours after the explosion. Although the explosion occurred over the Chelyabinsk region, it was so bright that it was visible from Sverdlovsk region and even from Tyumen. Some of the meteorite debris fell on Chelyabinsk. The zinc plant was damaged - a fragment fell on its roof and broke it. Pieces of bricks littered the roadway.

Photo report: 5 years of the Chelyabinsk meteorite

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Total in Chelyabinsk region Almost 7 thousand were affected. apartment buildings, 740 schools, 290 hospitals and clinics, 69 cultural and sports buildings. The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Vladimir Puchkov, estimated the damage from the meteorite to be almost half a billion rubles.

There were about 20 thousand rescuers to search for meteorite fragments. Soon meteorite fragments were found, two in the Chebarkul district of the Chelyabinsk region, another in Zlatoust. At the site of the supposed fall of a meteorite fragment near Lake Chebarkul, in the vicinity of the city of the same name, about 80 km from Chelyabinsk, the military discovered a crater with a diameter of about six meters. The radiation background at the funnel was normal.

When it became known that the crater was not dangerous, local residents moved towards it en masse.

Many of them went for fragments as souvenirs; meteorite fragments were put up for sale at online auctions at prices up to 100 thousand rubles per fragment. To avoid the removal of fragments from the country, we even had to connect.

Even Chelyabinsk Patent Group CJSC tried to make money on meterite by submitting applications to Rospatent to register the trademarks “Mysterious meteorite”, “Ural meteorite” and “Chebarkul meteorite”.

An online survey of the population was conducted. Thousands of people have described what they saw and heard when the meteorite appeared.

“Already the intermediate processing yielded new facts that had eluded numerous photo and video cameras: several dozen independent witnesses indicated that during the flight of the car they heard a hissing sound, often comparing it to sparklers, and more than fifty people simply reported sounds without detailed description. This was a few minutes before the arrival of the shock wave,” one of the organizers of the survey, astronomer Stanislav Korotky, told Gazeta.Ru. - Because sound waves cannot travel distances of tens of kilometers in fractions of seconds, then this phenomenon must have a different nature.”

A little more than a week later, 2/3 of the damaged buildings were restored - glass was installed, walls were restored. And new fragments of the meteorite continued to be found. There were also large pieces, the size of a fist, but mostly small ones. In the first month, we managed to collect about 3.5 kg of fragments. But the biggest find lay ahead.

In the fall of 2013, a mass of 654 kg was lifted from Lake Chebarkul.

When lifted from the lake and weighed, it split into several parts; as a result, it was decided to consider the largest surviving fragment weighing 540 kg to be the main fragment. Subsequently, scientists clarified that it is actually 473 kg.

Analysis of the fragments showed: the meteorite belongs to the class of ordinary chondrites LL5 (the least common group of ordinary chondrites, with a total iron content of 19-22% and only 0.3-3% metallic iron), characterized by a shock fraction S4 (traces of moderate impact of shock waves) and degree of weathering W0 (without visible traces of oxidation). Using isotope analysis, it was possible to find out that it is almost the same age as the Universe, its age was 4.56 billion years.

Czech scientists calculated that it amounted to 500 kilotons of TNT, which is 12 times more powerful than an explosion atomic bomb over Hiroshima. They also believe that it was once integral with the near-Earth 2.2-kilometer asteroid 999NC43, and then broke away from it.

British researchers determined that at the moment of passage the meteorite reached a peak brightness, 30 times higher than the brightness of the Sun. Moreover, in their opinion, the number of potentially dangerous meteorites like the one in Chelyabinsk is actually 10 times higher than previously thought.

And Olga Popova, a senior researcher at the Institute of Geosphere Dynamics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and her colleagues found that the speed of the meteorite was 19 kilometers per second, its size was 18-20 meters, and its mass was 1.3 * 10 7 kilograms.

In the scientific community, interest in the event was enormous: the conference hall of the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, where the first scientific reports on the meteorite were heard, experienced such excitement for last years perhaps only in the summer of 2012 at a report dedicated to the discovery of the Higgs boson.

In Russia, the Chelyabinsk meteorite has become a household name - many celestial bodies approaching the Earth are compared with it. In 2014, “A Light Touch of the Universe...”, released by the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore, and a triptych by a Ural painter were dedicated to him. Numerous recordings of the meteorite fall, made by video recorders, went viral on the Internet and gave rise to many jokes and questions abroad about why so many Russians have cameras in their cars.

The meteorite fragments are kept in the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore. According to the head of the department of theoretical physics at Chelyabinsk State University (CSU), Alexander Dudorov, today it is known that up to 95% of meteorite fragments found on earth “went to different hands,” including to foreigners, which complicates their study.

Our planet is surrounded by a huge number of different celestial bodies. Small ones, when falling to Earth, go unnoticed, but the fall of larger ones, weighing up to several hundred kilograms and even tons, leaves various consequences. Scientists from the Canadian Astrophysical Institute in Ottawa claim that every year the Earth's surface gets meteor shower with a total weight of more than 20 tons. The weight of individual meteorites ranges from several grams to tons.

(23 photos of meteorites + video)

The largest meteorites that fell on Earth

On April 22, 2012, a celestial body appeared near the surface of the Earth, moving at tremendous speed. Flying over the US states of Nevada and California, scattering hot particles, the meteorite exploded in the sky over Washington. The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT, which is almost eighty times less than the power of the explosion. Research by scientists has established that the Sutter Mill meteorite was formed during the formation of the solar system.

A year has already passed since February 2012, when hundreds of meteorite rocks fell over an area of ​​100 km in China. Eyewitnesses still remember this extraordinary event. The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg.

Near Lake Titicaca in Peru, in the fall of 2007, a meteorite fell, which eyewitnesses observed as a falling body engulfed in fire. The fall of the meteorite was accompanied by a loud noise, reminiscent of the sound of a falling plane.

At the crash site, a crater 6 m deep and 30 m in diameter formed, from which a fountain erupted hot water. The consequences of the meteorite fall are still felt by local residents.

Most likely, the celestial body contained toxic substances; 1,500 people living in the area closest to the crash site suffer from severe headaches.

In the summer of 1998, a meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, which received the name of the city. The fall of the celestial body was accompanied bright light. At the site where the largest meteorite fragment (weighing 820 kg) fell, a five-meter crater formed. Fortunately, no local residents were injured; the meteorite fell on a cotton field.

Scientists have established the age of the Turkmen meteorite - more than 4 billion years, this is the largest among the stone meteorites that fell on the territory of the CIS. Among all the known stone meteorites that fell to Earth, Kunya-Urgench is the third largest. Stone meteorites most often fall to Earth, their share is almost 93% of all types of celestial bodies that fell on the planet. The Chelyabinsk meteorite, according to the first estimates of scientists, was iron.

Meteorite Sterlitamak, 1990

On the night of May 17, 1990, a celestial body weighing 315 kilograms fell 20 kilometers from Sterlitamak. The meteorite, called Sterlitamak, left a crater with a diameter of 10 meters at the site of its impact on a state farm field. The largest fragment was not found immediately, but only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters. Nowadays it is an exhibit of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography. The meteorite, weighing 315 kilograms, has dimensions of 0.5x0.4x0.25 meters.

In March 1976, the largest shower of rock meteorites in history occurred in the Chinese province of Jilin. The fall of cosmic bodies to Earth continued for 37 minutes, the speed of the fall reached 12 kilometers per second. About a hundred meteorites were found, the largest of which was named Jilin (Girin), weighing 1.7 tons.

In the winter of 1947, a meteorite fell in the form of iron rain in the Far Eastern Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. Having fragmented in the atmosphere as a result of the explosion, the meteorite turned into many fragments that fell over an area of ​​10 sq. km. In places where the debris fell, more than 30 craters were formed, from 7 to 28 m in diameter, up to 6 m deep.

About 27 tons of meteorite debris were found over a vast area.

The largest one today known to science meteorites is called Goba. Iron Giant Volume 9 cubic meters and weighing almost 66 tons fell to the surface of the Earth back in prehistoric time. After lying on Earth for approximately 80,000 years, in 1920 the meteorite was found in Namibia.

The Goba meteorite is the heaviest of all cosmic bodies that has ever hit the surface of our planet. It consists mainly of iron. Now it is the largest piece of naturally occurring iron on Earth. It still lies in Namibia, southwest Africa. Since its discovery, the meteorite has lost almost 6 tons in weight as a result of scientific research, erosion and vandalism. Now it weighs 60 tons.

The mysterious Tunguska meteorite is considered one of the most studied on the planet, but continues to remain the most mysterious phenomenon of the beginning of the last century. On June 30, 1908, in the early morning, a giant fireball flew over the territory of the Yenisei River basin. Over an uninhabited taiga region, the object exploded at an altitude of 7-10 km. The blast wave went around Earth twice and was so powerful that all observatories in the world recorded it.

The power of the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite is equal to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb - 40-50 kilotons. The space giant, presumably weighing from 100 thousand tons to 1 million tons, rushed at speeds of tens of kilometers per second.

The blast wave felled trees over an area of ​​more than 200 sq. km, and window panes were broken in houses. Within a radius of 40 kilometers, animals died and people were injured. After the explosion, an intense glow of the sky and clouds was observed over a vast area for several days.

The answer to the question: what was that? - still no. If the fireball was a meteorite, then a gigantic crater with a depth of at least 500 m should have appeared at the crash site. But in all subsequent years it was never found. The Tunguska meteorite remains a mystery of the 20th century. The celestial body exploded in the air, the consequences were colossal, and no remains or debris were ever found on Earth.

Meteor Shower, USA, 1833

On an autumn November night in 1833, a meteorite rained over the United States. Meteorites fell on the Earth's surface for 10 hours various sizes, the total number of which exceeded 240,000. The source of this phenomenon was the most powerful of the currently known meteorite showers, which is called the Leonids.

About two dozen meteorite showers pass near the Earth every day. Scientists know about 50 comets that theoretically have the potential to cross the Earth's orbit. About once every ten years the Earth collides with relatively small cosmic bodies. Despite the fact that the movement of celestial bodies has been quite well studied and predicted, the next collision of a meteorite with the surface of the Earth is always a mysterious and surprising phenomenon for most of the planet's inhabitants.

HD Video of Meteor Shower

On the morning of February 15, at 9:30 local time, an explosion was heard in the sky over Chelyabinsk, which was initially mistaken for an airplane explosion. Powerful flash was visible for many kilometers around. Great destruction from the shock wave occurred at the Chelyabinsk zinc plant, where the wall of the warehouse collapsed and some of the glass was broken.

(19 photos of a meteorite fall in Chelyabinsk + 6 videos)

The blast wave damaged 3,000 buildings over a vast area: glass was broken, some structures and balconies collapsed. There are no fatalities. One way or another, about 1,000 people in six cities near Chelyabinsk were injured by the explosion.

People stayed in residential buildings without glass, and it was 15 degrees below zero outside, many received small cuts from fragments of the exploding object. Very soon it became known that the object was a meteorite that fell near the city of Satka, between Chelyabinsk and Ufa.

Scientists expressed their opinion. Stating that there was a meteor shower over Chelyabinsk. Immediately before the explosion, space observation instruments recorded activity in the lower layers of the atmosphere.

A source in the Ministry of Emergency Situations told Interfax about the recorded fall of an object, presumably a meteorite, which, when passing through the upper layers of the atmosphere, most likely broke up into several pieces.

The flash in the sky over Chelyabinsk was observed by eyewitnesses in Yekaterinburg, which is located two hundred kilometers from Chelyabinsk, in the Kurgan and Tyumen regions, as well as in neighboring Kazakhstan. Most likely, the meteorite fell into a reservoir near the city of Chebarkul. On the shore of a lake located a kilometer away from the city, the site of the supposed fall was found: a crater with a diameter of about 6 meters.

According to the latest data, the meteorite was small in size - only about 1 meter in diameter, and weighing several tons. Most likely, it consisted of iron. As a result of the destruction, a shock wave and radiation formed in the atmosphere, the fragments scattered into long distance. The explosion was captured on video and shown to the media. There are air routes in the skies over Chelyabinsk; no aircraft were damaged in the air.

An official statement was made by the head of the Chelyabinsk administration in connection with an emergency incident - the fall of a meteorite and its fragments on Southern Urals. He stated that, despite the serious destruction at the zinc plant, there were no casualties, and there was no threat of environmental danger. In city schools, by decision of the administration, the second shift was canceled, and employees of city enterprises were advised not to come to their workplaces until the afternoon of Friday, February 15.

It doesn't work in the city after the meteorite explosion cellular. NASA experts estimate the power of the meteorite explosion during its fall at three hundred kilotons of TNT, which is twenty times greater than the power of the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. This is the first time such an incident has happened in Russia.

Cosmic bodies are constantly falling onto our planet. Some of them are the size of a grain of sand, others can weigh several hundred kilograms and even tons. Canadian scientists from the Ottawa Astrophysical Institute claim that a meteor shower falls on Earth every year total mass more than 21 tons, and individual meteorites weigh from a few grams to 1 ton.

In this article we will recall the 10 largest meteorites that fell to Earth.

Sutter Mill meteorite, April 22, 2012

This meteorite, named Sutter Mill, appeared near the Earth on April 22, 2012, moving at a breakneck speed of 29 km/sec. It flew over the states of Nevada and California, scattering its hot fragments, and exploded over Washington. The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT. For comparison, yesterday's power was 300 kilotons of TNT.

Scientists have found that the Sutter Mill meteorite appeared in the early days of its existence, and the progenitor cosmic body was formed over 4566.57 million years ago.

Almost a year ago, on February 11, 2012, about a hundred meteorite stones fell over an area of ​​100 km in one of the regions of China. The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg. The meteorites are believed to have come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Meteorite from Peru, September 15, 2007

This meteorite fell in Peru near Lake Titicaca, near the border with Bolivia. Eyewitnesses claimed that at first there was a strong noise, similar to the sound of a falling plane, but then they saw a falling body engulfed in fire.

A bright trail from a white-hot cosmic body entering the Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor.

At the site of the fall, the explosion formed a crater with a diameter of 30 and a depth of 6 meters, from which a fountain of boiling water began to flow. The meteorite probably contained toxic substances, as 1,500 people living nearby began to experience severe headaches.

By the way, most often stone meteorites (92.8%), consisting mainly of silicates, fall to Earth. , was made of iron, according to first estimates.

Kunya-Urgench meteorite from Turkmenistan, June 20, 1998

The meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, hence its name. Before the fall, residents saw a bright light. The largest part of the meteorite, weighing 820 kg, fell into a cotton field, creating a crater about 5 meters.

This one, more than 4 billion years old, has received a certificate from the International Meteor Society and is considered the largest among stone meteorites of all that fell in the CIS and the third in the world.

Fragment of a Turkmen meteorite:

Meteorite Sterlitamak, May 17, 1990

Iron meteorite Sterlitamak weighing 315 kg fell on a state farm field 20 km west of the city of Sterlitamak on the night of May 17-18, 1990. When a meteorite fell, a crater with a diameter of 10 meters was formed.

First, small metal fragments were found, and only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters, the largest fragment weighing 315 kg was found. Now the meteorite (0.5 x 0.4 x 0.25 meters) is in the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Fragments of a meteorite. On the left is the same fragment weighing 315 kg:

Largest meteor shower, China, March 8, 1976

In March 1976, the largest meteorite rock shower in the world occurred in the Chinese province of Jilin, lasting 37 minutes. Cosmic bodies fell to the ground at a speed of 12 km/sec.

Fantasy on the theme of meteorites:

Then they found about a hundred meteorites, including the largest - the 1.7-ton Jilin (Girin) meteorite.

These are the stones that fell from the sky onto China for 37 minutes:

Meteorite Sikhote-Alin, Far East, February 12, 1947

A meteorite fell on Far East in the Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains on February 12, 1947. It fragmented in the atmosphere and fell in the form of iron rain over an area of ​​10 sq. km.

After the fall, more than 30 craters were formed with a diameter of 7 to 28 m and a depth of up to 6 meters. About 27 tons of meteorite material were collected.

Fragments of “piece of iron” that fell from the sky during a meteor shower:

Goba meteorite, Namibia, 1920

Meet Goba - largest meteorite ever found! Strictly speaking, it fell approximately 80,000 years ago. This iron giant weighs about 66 tons and has a volume of 9 cubic meters. fell in prehistoric times and was found in Namibia in 1920 near Grootfontein.

The Goba meteorite is mainly composed of iron and is considered the heaviest of all celestial bodies of this kind that have ever appeared on Earth. It is preserved at a crash site in southwest Africa, Namibia, near Goba West Farm. This is also the largest piece of naturally occurring iron on Earth. Since 1920, the meteorite has shrunk slightly: erosion, Scientific research and vandalism did their job: the meteorite “lost weight” to 60 tons.

The mystery of the Tunguska meteorite, 1908

On June 30, 1908, at about 07 a.m., a large fireball flew over the territory of the Yenisei basin from southeast to northwest. The flight ended with an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above an uninhabited taiga region. The blast wave circled the globe twice and was recorded by observatories around the world.

The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb. The flight speed of the space giant was tens of kilometers per second. Weight - from 100 thousand to 1 million tons!

Podkamennaya Tunguska River area:

As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of ​​more than 2,000 square meters. km, window glass in houses was broken several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. The blast wave destroyed animals and injured people within a radius of about 40 km. For several days, intense sky glow and luminous clouds were observed from the Atlantic to central Siberia:

But what was it? If it was a meteorite, then a huge crater half a kilometer deep should have appeared at the site of its fall. But none of the expeditions succeeded in finding him...

The Tunguska meteorite is, on the one hand, one of the most well-studied phenomena, on the other hand, one of the most mysterious phenomena of the past century. The celestial body exploded in the air and no remains of it, except for the consequences of the explosion, were found on the ground.

Meteor shower of 1833

On the night of November 13, 1833, a meteor shower occurred over the eastern United States. It continued continuously for 10 hours! During this time, about 240,000 meteorites fell on the Earth's surface. different sizes. The source of the 1833 meteor shower was the most powerful one known. meteor showers. This shower is now called the Leonids after the constellation Leo, against which it is visible every year in mid-November. On a much more modest scale, of course.

Chelyabinsk is a large city in the Russian Federation, scientific, industrial and Cultural Center Ural. This is a city of working people, famous for its industrial power and industrial records. But on February 15, 2013, the city became famous throughout the world after a meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk.

What really happened?

At approximately 9:30 local time, residents not only of Chelyabinsk, but also of remote areas observed the rapid flight of a brightly glowing unidentified object in the sky, behind which stretched a powerful jet trail. Then a shock wave swept through, causing a lot of destruction and affecting more than 1,500 city residents.

The city announced state of emergency, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, soldiers, and police were sent to the supposed place where the unknown body fell. Scientists and curious people also moved there. Every channel Russian media sent his reporters to the scene, everyone wanted to get pictures and fragments of the celestial body.

This event shocked not only local residents. NASA was concerned, and astronomers from the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Great Britain, Canada, and America became interested in the event. A whole year has passed, but the truth about the Chelyabinsk meteorite continues to worry both the population and scientists.

Restoring the chronicle of events

The winter morning began as usual. People went to work, assigned children to schools and kindergartens, and students went to study.

In the sky at 9:23, residents of Chelyabinsk noticed a strange flash and unusual stripes, like from a jet plane. After a couple of minutes, every person felt the shaking of the soil, and the whole of Chelyabinsk shook. The explosion of the meteorite caused a shock wave that swept over a radius of several kilometers. Trees fell, windows flew out of buildings, car alarms went off, and a wall was blown off at a zinc plant.

Guess and truth

There were different versions of the phenomenon, sometimes fantastic. Someone decided that these were enemy missiles, some suggested a plane crash, and there were those who believed in an attack on the planet by aliens.

In fact, a large meteorite fell to the ground near the city of Chelyabinsk, the second largest after Tunguska meteorite, which fell in Eastern Siberia in June 1908.

February 2013 - a “space guest” entered the planet’s atmosphere under acute angle approximately 20°. According to experts, at an altitude of about 20-25 km, the meteorite broke into pieces. The debris fell to the ground with great speed.

Physical characteristics of the “guest from outer space”

According to experts, including NASA specialists, the meteorite in Chelyabinsk weighed 10 tons and had a diameter of at least 17 m, and entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 18 km/h.

The flight of the meteorite after entering our atmosphere lasted no more than 40 seconds. It began to explode at an altitude of 20 kilometers. The explosion, with a power of about 470 kilotons (this is 30 times more than the bomb explosion in Hiroshima), produced numerous fragments and pieces that quickly crashed into the Chelyabinsk lands. The bright light from the fall was visible on long distances. It was observed in the Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen regions, Kazakhstan and Bashkortostan. The farthest point where traces of the meteorite's flight were visible was the Samara region, located 750 km from Chelyabinsk.

Consequences of a meteorite fall

When the meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk, it caused a series of shock waves. Many trees were knocked down in the city, and about 3,000 buildings and structures were damaged. In many houses, glass was broken by the shock wave, and communications were lost for a while. The heaviest blow fell on the Satka district. A zinc plant there was partially destroyed.

Many asked the question where the meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk and how dangerous it is. The city announced emergency, all units of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were sent to the scene of the incident. A conversation was held with the population, panic was suppressed, and they tried to keep the situation under control.

In addition to Chelyabinsk, the following areas of the region were affected: Korkino, Yemanzhelinsk, Yuzhnouralsk, Kopeisk and the village of Etkul.

According to scientists, if the meteorite had exploded 5-6 km below, the consequences would have been much more dire.

Crash site

Each is of great interest scientific point vision. To study the nature of the origin of the meteorite, it chemical composition, it was necessary to find as many fragments and pieces of the celestial body as possible. For this, it was important to establish the exact location of the meteorite fall in Chelyabinsk.

Two main parts were quickly found in the Chebarkul region. The third main fragment was found in the Zlatoust region. But I had to look for the fourth one. It was believed that it fell in the area. Local residents who were fishing on the lake in the morning confirmed that there was a space rock and fell into the lake itself. Eyewitnesses said that the impact caused a huge wave. The water rose 3-4 meters.

Choosing a name

After the fall of the meteorite, 2 options for its name were proposed - Chebarkul or Chelyabinsk. In favor of the first name, arguments were given that the main fragment fell into Lake Chebarkul near settlement Chebarkul. However, supporters of the name “Chelyabinsk” said that the meteorite brought the greatest destruction to the regional center. As a revenge, it should receive the name Chelyabinsk.

Academician E. Galimov, head of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, announced that the meteorite will be included in the International Catalog under the name “Chelyabinsk”.

Collecting meteorite parts

Hundreds of small fragments were found at the crash sites. Special expeditions were sent to search. Three kilograms of meteorite stones were collected near Lake Chebarkul alone. The search continued for more than six months. In August, news was received that a local resident had found a piece of debris weighing 3.5 kg in the area of ​​the village of Timiryazevsky.

But the most interesting thing was the huge piece of debris that fell into the lake. Its weight, according to preliminary estimates, was 300-400 kg; it sank deep into the bottom silt. Local authorities allocated 3 million rubles to raise it.

A huge piece was removed from the bottom of the lake in August 2013. His weight turned out to be 600 kg. After examination by scientists and a verdict on radioactive and chemical safety, the meteorite fragment was transferred to the local history museum.

Mineral composition

After a while, the researchers explained which meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk. The space object is an ordinary chondrite. It contains olivine, iron, sulfites, magnetic pyrites and other complex minerals. The Chelyabinsk meteorite contains traces of titanium iron ore and inclusions of native copper, which is unusual for chondrites. The cracks in the body are filled with a glassy substance mixed with silicates. The thickness of the melting crust is 1 mm.

Scientists have established that the age of the mother body, from which a piece broke off, which later became the Chelyabinsk meteorite, is at least 4 billion (!) years. “Our” piece wandered for some time before falling to Earth. outer space, colliding with other cosmic bodies...

Scary? Alarming...

Scientists around the world today study the presented material with diligence. Many knowledgeable experts have suggested that this is not just a meteorite, but a harbinger of an asteroid. Some even believed that a large asteroid would soon arrive on Earth, and then the destruction would be catastrophic. But Anatoly Zaitsev, director of the Center for Planetary Protection of the Earth from Asteroids, explained that this is just a theory. And he assured that nothing threatens the planet’s population, and that celestial bodies flying past are closely monitored.

Life after a meteorite crash

The meteorite that fell in Chelyabinsk attracted the attention of the masses and caused a lot of controversy and speculation. Conversations and rumors around the event do not subside to this day. The city near Lake Chebarkul became known throughout the world. Scientists went here: geochemists, physicists, astronomers. Everyone wanted to see with my own eyes messenger from outer space.

The meteorite fall in Chelyabinsk has become profitable from a tourism point of view. The owner of a large travel agency says that soon after the event, calls began to come from America and Japan. Some wanted an individual tour, many wanted to organize a group trip to the site of the famous meteorite fall.

Demand creates invitation, which is why all the guidebooks have added significant places Chelyabinsk region and a zone called "Chebarkul meteorite". The price for a trip to the now historical lake varies from 5,000 to 20,000 rubles.

Every cloud has a silver lining: at the official level

Chelyabinsk authorities decided to go down in history with the help of the event of February 15, 2013 Olympic Games. They created several medals made of precious metal with a meteorite insert. This award will be received by every athlete who takes a prize place in competitions held on February 15th. Anything that remains unused from the found fragments will be distributed to Russian museums and private collections.

Some particularly large exhibits were collected and relevant documentation was prepared. A tour of museums will be carried out with this material. Russian Federation. Every resident of the country should see a piece of a meteorite. In Moscow, the demonstration took place on January 17, 2014. Many materials will replenish the collection of the famous Moscow planetarium. Several thematic stands and posters were developed for this event.

The birth of brands

While rescuers were clearing out the consequences of the disaster caused by a meteorite that fell in Chelyabinsk, many entrepreneurs wasted no time and actively used the fall of a celestial body for commercial purposes. Andrei Orlov, mayor of the Chebarkul urban district, showed an excellent response in this area. Here with him light hand A competition was organized for the most interesting brand name. The winner was promised a piece of meteorite as a prize. Under interesting names, such as “Chebarkul meteorite”, “Ural meteorite”, “Chelyabinsk - the capital in Chelyabinsk” and “Che!”, confectionery and alcoholic beverages began to be produced.

Strike while the iron is hot

Various companies began to produce clothes with appropriate prints, mugs, plates and even puzzles. First, T-shirts with a comic inscription became popular among locals, and then throughout Russia: “Nothing invigorates you more than a meteorite in the morning!” It is worth noting that original idea Chelyabinsk perfume company. She decided to create an unusual perfume called “Chebarkul meteorite”. Perfumers say that the aroma of this “cosmic object” will include components of stone and metal.

Ordinary residents of the Urals also showed entrepreneurial spirit. The meteorite did its job in Chelyabinsk. His photos spread with great speed across the Internet. Thousands of requests per minute testified to how many people there are who want to see the crash site and the celestial object itself. One resourceful resident of a Ural town sold a microwave on the Internet market, which burned out under the influence of a shock wave. An unknown American bought such a strange thing, but in addition to this purchase he asked to send a couple of local newspapers with news about the fall of a meteorite in Chelyabinsk. Some exhibited shards of glass that were scattered by the explosion as they fell. And all these things were snapped up by strange collectors. Pieces of the meteorite itself were especially prized. The most low price per fragment started at 10,000 rubles, the highest was 10,000,000 rubles. The police encountered natural scammers who passed off ordinary stones as celestial objects.

“Healing” properties of the meteorite

Hundreds of residents came to Lake Chebarkul and dreamed of finding not only an expensive stone, but also a “healing one.” Charlatans - magicians and sorcerers - used such fragments to remove damage, treat the most terrible diseases, and drive out evil spirits. Entire legends and myths were invented about the influence of the “cosmic guest” on a person, depending on the zodiac sign. And how many amulets with a piece of this body have already spread throughout the world! The meteorite was simply credited with magical properties, although in reality it does not have any healing power.

Interesting facts about the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite

A meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk, which caused a lot of noise around the world. Scientists managed to study the cosmic body once again, and someone just made good money from this event. It is worth noting some interesting points and facts about the Chelyabinsk meteorite:

• The largest piece of the meteorite fell to the bottom of Lake Chebarkul.
• The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations claimed that it informed residents about the upcoming event via SMS, but this turned out to be a lie.
• Many TV channels showed not a crater from a meteorite fall, but gas crater in Turkmenistan.
• Many residents of Chelyabinsk deliberately broke their windows, simulating the consequences of a blast wave. They wanted new ones plastic windows from the state as material assistance to the victims.
• The diameter of the crater from the meteorite fall was 6 meters.
• 470 kilotons of energy were released during the explosion of a celestial body.
• Scientists have calculated that a meteorite of this size falls to Earth once every hundred years.
• It is believed that the meteorite went unnoticed because it was flying from the direction of the sun. That is why telescopes did not detect the approaching celestial body.