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Subscribe to RSSThe so-called "meteorite rush" has begun around the city of Chelyabinsk, where people have been searching in the snow and ice for chunks of the meteor that hit Russia last week. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
MOSCOW — A meteor that exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains and sent fireballs blazing to Earth has set off a rush to find fragments of the space rock which hunters hope could fetch thousands of dollars apiece.
Friday's blast and the shock wave that followed shattered windows, injured almost 1,200 people and caused about $33 million worth of damage, said local authorities.
It also started a "meteorite rush" around the industrial city of Chelyabinsk, 950 miles (1,500 kilometers) east of Moscow, where groups of people have started combing through the snow and ice. One amateur space enthusiast estimated that chunks could be worth anything up to 66,000 rubles ($2,200) per gram — more than 40 times the current cost of gold.
"The price is hard to say yet . ... The fewer meteorites that are recovered, the higher their price," said Dmitry Kachkalin, a member of the Russian Society of Amateur Meteorite Lovers. Meteorites are parts of a meteor that have fallen to Earth.
Scientists at the Urals Federal University were the first to announce a significant find: 53 small, stony, black objects around Lake Chebarkul, near Chelyabinsk, which tests confirmed were small meteorites. The fragments were only 0.5 to 1 centimeter (0.2 to 0.4 inches) across, but the scientists said larger pieces may have crashed into the lake, where a crater in the ice about 8 meters (26 feet) wide opened up after Friday's explosion.
"We just completed tests, and confirm that the pieces of matter found by our experts around Lake Chebarkul are really meteorites," Viktor Grokhovsky, a scientist with the Urals Federal University and the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the RIA news agency. "These are classified as ordinary chondrites, or stony meteorites, with an iron content of about 10 percent."
He did not say whether the fragments had told his team anything about the origins of the meteor, which NASA estimated was 55 feet (17 meters) across before entering Earth's atmosphere and weighed about 10,000 tons.
Alexander Khlopotov / Urals Federal University Press Service via AP
A researcher examines pieces of a meteorite in a laboratory on Monday in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Alexander Khlopotov / Urals Federal University Press Service via AP
Pieces of a meteorite are seen in a Russian laboratory on Monday. Fifty-three pieces have been brought for analysis to the Urals Federal University in Yekaterinburg. The largest one is one centimeter (a half-inch) in diameter, the smallest is about one millimeter.
The main fireball streaked across the sky at a speed of about 30 kilometers (19 miles) per second before crashing into the snowy wastes, according to Roscosmos, Russia's space agency.
More than 20,000 people took part in search and cleanup operations over the weekend in and around Chelyabinsk, which is in the heart of a region packed with industrial military plants. Many other people were in the area just hoping to find a meteorite, after what was described by scientists as a once-in-a-century event.
Residents of a village near Chelyabinsk searched the snowy streets, collecting stones they hoped would prove to be the real thing. But not all were ready to sell.
"I will keep it. Why sell it? I didn't have a rich lifestyle before, so why start now?" a woman in a pink woolen hat and winter jacket told state television Rossiya-24 as she clutched a small black pebble.
The Internet filled quickly with advertisements from eager hunters hoping to sell what they said were meteorites — some for as little as 1,000 rubles ($33.18).
The authenticity of the items was hard to ascertain. One seller of a large, silver-hued rock wrote in an advertisement on the portal Avito.ru: "Selling an unusual rock. It may be a piece of meteorite, it may be a bit of a UFO, it may be a piece of a rocket!"
Yekaterina Pustynnikova / Chelyabinsk.ru via AP
Click through scenes from Russia's Chelyabinsk region, where a huge meteor fireball set off alarms, injured hundreds of people and caused a factory roof to collapse.
More about the Russian meteor:
- Estimates raised for nuclear-scale meteor blast
- Meteor explosion outshone the sun
- 'Fireballs' light up Florida sky
- NBCNews.com archive on asteroids
Reuters' Ludmila Danilova and Gabriela Baczinska contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
These Russians sure seem to have figured out capitalism real good real fast. Too bad we seem to have forgotten how to make it work in America.
I'm starting a meteorite and asteroid mining company!!
I'll call your 2 meteorites and raise you 1 asteroid.
i'm sorry... but am i the only one questioning the validity of the exorbitant value these meteorite pieces have been tagged with?
i find it pathetic that the reporter provided no information as to why these rocks/pebbles may be worth so much more than gold... and yes i understand the issue of rarity, but the implications are worlds a part; u can prospect for gold... it will be a while before we prospect for or establish a meteorite standard rate of exchange
This new interest in meteorites is hilarious. We apparently have one in our yard if you can go by the generational stories that have been handed down through the years. In 1898 it supposedly lit up the sky over a little town called Mason in central IL. It landed in a field owned by my husband's grandfather's family and was still hot when half the town showed up to check it out. It's smooth and round, about 30 inches in diameter but was so dense that no one could lift it so they drug it with a team of horses back to the house where it basically sat for the next hundred years as a garden ornament, suffering the indignity of various coats of paint. When the property was sold outside the family and we were building our own house we decided to keep it but had to get a wrecker to hoist it up off the ground and transport it as it's unusually heavy for its size. Anyway we've never noticed it humming or glowing or hatching into anything so its pretty much just an interesting conversation piece. After reading all this though, I'm thinking of putting it on Ebay.
You should get somebody out there to confirm whether it's from space. You could be sitting on the mother lode!
There will be lots of meteorite stuff on ebay now.
Great, the next big REALITY TV show will be...
METEORITE HUNTERS!
I can see it now... an overweight, balding guy right now on a $8000 four wheeler with an AR-15, camping gear, and a 24-pack of Bud-Light video taping himself on the dangers of hunting meteorites.
There is worse reality shows than that already
How do you know it's real when it comes in the mail?
Ans: Look at the lower right hand corner. It will say: Made in Rooshya.
Operating drones designed to gather space rocks, would be an enormously profitable business.
Why not just do sample return missions to the moon. It's covered with space debris and meteorites. I do believe nobody can claim the moon or any planet their own. This would be the least costly with the most return in the long run.
10,000 tons is 20 million pounds. I don't think so guys...
I'm sure a nondescript chunk of gray, formless rock would look great on a pendant or ring.
Governments and scientist didn't tell us for safety reason, to keep people from freaking out. They were watching a 150 foot meteor, and within a 24 hour period of it pass by earth a second 50 foot meteor goes through the earths atmosphere and they didn't see it coming, yea right. Governments and scientist couldn't have known when and where it would hit, heck they can't tell when and where a scrapped satellite will crash to earth.
That tin foil getting a bit too tight?
What really surprised me about this event is that Russia has highways. Wonder if their televisions are still made of vacuum tubes.
No they just watch moving pictures on the flipbooks. But seriously, since 1990s, Russia has access to all the same electronics as US. They don't make TVs anymore. And United States don't make TVs anymore, either.
Some "amateur space enthusiast" as the article euphemistically called a vodka swilling local retiree, throws out a number he got out of his...imagination, and the media, mostly NBCNEWS and CNN have repeated that number as if it were a scientific constant. It makes me think the reporter is selling some meteorite pieces they found.
Fox would say it is a diversion from Bengahzi.
The "falling star" has been traveling from out of space, with no fire, or explosioin, for it has no oxgen or heat. When the "falling star" entering the earth atmosphere, it lights up and burns, for it has oxygen and heat. But its traveling speed is 33,000 mph, and no satellite can verify its coming or direction. And the "falling star" is supposed to be burn up, in terms of size or energy kept inside, or can the "falling star" be burned up with that speed?
Now the falling star coming down to a cooling step, another atmosphere, when the falling star hits the freezing temperature, how can it sustain its burning action and its energy?
Perhaps, it may be the falling star flying too fast that we cannot capture them, and it is not until it lands on our soil.
FOR SALE: One large chunk of rock with high metal content. It's either a meteorite or a Republican's heart. Makes a great doorstop.
You guys are dumb ass--- (and I feel like I am using this statement often on these webpages)! The big chunk was already taken by scientists (staying in hotels and guest houses nearby for this event) who wanted to study the asteroid from where it originated: 2012 DA 14. You can all compete for the smaller pieces and some coal. Case closed!
I got some rhoids and kidney stones for sale.
Republicans think they are like sea shells. They can hear the crap and piss out venom they spew.
Rock on Russians get something for them or keep them for your kids.
And to think my only ambition in life was to be an Oscar Mayer wiener.
Hope they make boo coo bucks off of them.
Peace to all my brothers and sisters always.
hint.... people no longer have to lie, cheat and steal to get the material wealth..... the wealth will come to them and they will stand in the fields with their arms outstretched grabbing for it while the sky falls upon their heads...... help them lord for we know not what we do ;(
Mana from heaven.
That's cool for signing with alien to get more meteorite ^^
Hell, I bet you could buy some on ebay. It will be the next big scam. Hey, why don't we send some rockets up there and start mining the stuff? We might be able to pay a little off our debt in a hundred years or so.
Fact Check: I keep reading news reports that, at an estimated 10 tons, this was the largest meteor to impact Earth in a hundred years, which is absurd. A nickel-iron meteor weighing an estimated 70 to 150 tons fell in the Sikhote Alin mountains of Siberia in 1947 -- the largest meteor fall in recorded history. While the total weight can only be estimated, 23 tons were retrieved and transported to the Science Academy in Moscow, and material continues to be recovered.