back to article Hypersonic MEGA METEOR pulled from lake, then Russians drop it

A chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which wounded more than 1,000 people when it exploded over Russia in February, has been found and raised from its resting place 20 metres under in a lake. Chelyabinsk meteorite The Chelyabinsk meteorite in one piece, but not for long It took Russian divers a month to successfully …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > ...4.56 billion years. In fact, we possess a rock from the times of genesis...

    If he means the biblical Genesis, don't the God botherers claim that the Earth is only a few thousand years old?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes they do. However, I really don't buy into that number, time itself only started January 1, 1970.

      1. willi0000000
        Happy

        @MyBackDoor

        that's not why you don't remember the 60's.

      2. Bobby Omelette

        Unless you believe in DOS, when time started on 01-Jan-1980.

      3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        time itself only started January 1, 1970

        Surely not, wasn't it 17th November, 1858?

    2. Sureo

      Re. genesis

      Just because the earth is only a few thousand years old doesn't mean the asteroid couldn't be billions of years old.

      1. asdf
        Holmes

        Re: Re. genesis

        Wow I really hope that is sarcasm and the upvote was somebody recognizing it.

    3. JDX Gold badge

      >>don't the God botherers claim that the Earth is only a few thousand years old?

      Well I'm in a church of 200 people which would be regarded as pretty fundamentalist and I know of 2 people who think this, and I know they are considered weird even within our weird church.

      So I think the answer is no.

      1. Denarius
        Meh

        @JDX

        that's alright then. The kids of the sane majority wont be there in 20 years. And no, I don't mean that escapist fantasy that has been knocking around for only 100 years or so about rapture. More likely indifference to an incompetent ${deity} of impoverished irrational human imagination. Ever heard of the universal acid that Dawkins speaks of ?

        1. Just_this_guy

          Re: @JDX

          " Ever heard of the universal acid that Dawkins speaks of ?"

          That was Dan Dennett's phrase, from "Darwin's Dangerous Idea".

    4. Don Jefe

      Only a subset of fundamentalist nutters claim Earth is only a few thousand years old. Even the Catholic Church acknowledges the very old age of the planet as well as teaching evolutionary biology in their universities and colleges.

      As with so many things, the lunatics are so loud they drown out the voices of reason that are present in most things.

      1. asdf

        >Only a subset of fundamentalist nutters claim Earth is only a few thousand years old.

        Sadly not in my country at least when it comes to the age of the human race (not that our political theater doesn't give the crazy away).

        Participants can choose one of three answers:

        1. "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." It's fair to describe this as the creationist view.

        2. "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process." We'll call this the theistic view.

        3. "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process." I'll term this the naturalist view.

        Between 1982 and 2006, the number subscribing to the creationist view has ranged from 44 to 47 percent, while those who buy the naturalist take on things account for 9 to 13 percent. The middle-ground theistic position gets 35 to 40 percent of the vote. There's no clear trend over the 24 years; if anything, the naturalists have gained a few percentage points. Polls by the Pew Research Center and NBC News have found similar support for creationist belief, while surveys by CBS News from 2004 to 2006 and a 2005 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll give it a slim majority, at 51 to 53 percent.

        How does the U.S. compare with other countries in terms of belief in evolution? Not so hot. A study of attitudes in 34 countries published in Science in 2006 shows that the United States ranks last in popular acceptance of evolution except for Turkey. Almost 40 percent of Americans in this study flatly rejected evolution, whereas the comparable numbers in European countries and Japan ranged from 7 to 15 percent.

        1. Don Jefe

          But those aren't the only three answers available here in the US. Those are the three answers that the media and some in government have chosen to present. One does not have to chose any of those, and the majority of the educated do not: They'll tell you 'I don't know'.

          Many religions have a serious image problem because many of their visible 'adherents' aren't adherents at all. They are manipulating very simple philosophies and twisting them to suit their own needs. They'll raise 'religion' as a defense, but turn right around and ignore the other 98.65% of what that religion teaches as long as they get their way.

          The rub in all this is that those who actually follow the teachings of any of the 'big' religions won't demean themselves and their beliefs by getting into mudslinging opinion manipulation tactics. They take a better road and let people form their own opinions and if someone is too closed minded to actually learn about the religion they claim to follow, well, that's their problem.

    5. Anonymous Blowhard

      I think he means tha band...

    6. Lottie

      That made me do a double take at first, but I figured it was just a translation thing and refered to the genesis of the universe and the bible.

    7. Vulch

      Time of Genesis?

      Peter Gabriel era or Phil Collins?

      1. Martin
        Happy

        Re: Time of Genesis?

        Time started on Jan 1 1970 as stated above.

        Therefore Peter Gabriel.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Measurer

          Re: Time of Genesis?

          Hold on, was Peter Gabriel really the angel Gabriel then, flying under a not very imaginitive pseudonym?

    8. Bunbury

      Surely they're ALL of this age

      Why demaean yourself by using histionics "from the time of genesis" in such hushed reverent tones? A solar system condenses about 4600 MEEELLION years ago. Small bits hang around not doing much. The bigger bits are active and reprocess stuff through impact, geological processes, boiling things etc.

      Surely the more scientifically interesting thing would be if the rock had processes working on it more recently? Looks like this might be the case as the paper says "the history of meteorite formation

      included an impact event at approximately 290 Ma". If only I knew what Ma was - Millions of years Ago? Or it could be Ma Baker for all I know.

      Also, it looks like the main lab work was done on the little bits that fell in the snow, not the Holy Covanent that baptised itself. so they could give the latter to the Church of Flake. Not that he actually has a church to put it in.

      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: Surely they're ALL of this age

        It does seem a little odd to refer to the time that the Solar System began to form as 'the time of Genesis'. nothing was actually created at that time (which, after all is the literal meaning of the word genesis), it is just the generally accepted time frame in which material that was to formt eh solar system began to coalesce.

        The universe was 'created' in the big bang some 13.5 billion years ago (IIRC), so surely, if you're going to use the word genesis at all, then it should refer to that, and to be frank, so little is known (and possibly is even knowable) about the cause of that (if the word 'cause' even makes sense in this context) that 'genesis' is probably exactly the wrong word to use anyway.

        On the other hand, those who believe that our planet was 'created' a few thousand years ago by some sort of all powerful space ghost, despite the lack of any material evidence (books and men in dresses telling you so don't count) need to learn the art of rational thought, that the rest of us use to understand the nature of the universe from observation and experiment.

      2. swissrobin

        Re: Surely they're ALL of this age

        Ma = millions of years (M = million, a = year).

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    "with the necessary skills to decode and translate the messages being broadcast from the rock so that they can be exposed to the rest of us"

    ...for a slight fee.

    Of course the decoding will demand ... careful interaction ... with young russian women lest the signal/noise ratio of the retrieval process suffer due to male spiritistic emissions.

  3. MondoMan
    Facepalm

    So does this mean "Siberia" is a documentary, then?

  4. asdf

    the russians

    The Russians really are getting to be experts on meteor strikes. Guess with the size and latitude of their country they have a darn good reason too. Their government may suck even worse than ours but at least their scientists are pretty much first rate.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: the russians

      I wouldn't call dropping it and breaking it "first rate".

      1. Euripides Pants
        Facepalm

        Re: "first rate"

        Considering that our politicians in the Good Ol' US of A broke the entire planet's economy in 2008, breaking a rock doesn't look that bad.

      2. Don Jefe

        Re: the russians

        Meh. It was destined to be broken up anyway. The fact it was broken by accident is probably advantageous as it will have broken along natural facets. It will give future researchers clues as to the structure of the larger body.

        1. tony2heads
          Joke

          re:broken

          It was like that when I got here!

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: the russians

      This Breyv guy feels very American.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: the russians

        "This Breyv guy feels very American."

        'Cause you're a bigot.

        1. Anonymous Dutch Coward
          Coat

          FEEL it!

          In any case, I think it's rather perverted to go around feeling scientists and trying to guess their nationality based on touch...

      2. Tom 7

        Re: the russians

        the hajj involves going round and round a meteorite so he feels a bit more universal than that.

    3. TechBearMike

      Re: the russians

      Recently heard a radio talk show panel of engineers and other scientists who uniformly said that the state of science in Russia these days is deplorably lacking and quite behind the times. I would think this is probably the case only outside the military sector, but who knows?

      1. asdf

        Re: the russians

        Well didn't want to come off as a jingoist a hole. One of the biggest fallacies in the past has been western scientists assuming local people didn't care as much as them about science and history even locally.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: the russians

      "but at least their scientists are pretty much first rate."

      If they're so first rate, then they can't possibly need all 570kg of rock. I could make millions flogging Genesis meteor (tm) fragments to the rich and vain around the planet. Maybe commission a few famous designers to come up with suitably pretentious artefacts, have my rock sliced, disced and polished accordingly, and then market through the normal channels for selling to those with money to burn.

  5. KrisMac

    "..pressure of reentry. Its...'

    I'm being (somewhat) tounge in cheek here, but why do we call it "re-entry" for a bit of rock that (or an alien for that matter) that has never visited our bigger bit of rock before (presumably)... surely it would simply be "atmospheric entry"??

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Aerobraking

      Followed shortly after by a bit of aquabraking and a lot of lithobraking.

      1. Herbert Meyer
        Coat

        Re: Aerobraking

        Followed by windowbreaking ?

    2. Euripides Pants
      Joke

      Re: "..pressure of reentry. Its...'

      Instead of reentry, how about just calling it penetration....

  6. emmanuel goldstein

    stroll on

    the Russian loony man has only 200 social media followers. this is how an advanced alien entity communicates to humanity?

    1. Big-nosed Pengie

      Re: stroll on

      Probably as many followers as Jesus (or Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard) had initially. Never underestimate the potential influence of small groups of loonies.

      1. Crazy Operations Guy

        Re: stroll on

        Yeah, just look at the US Congress.

      2. Denarius
        Facepalm

        Re: stroll on

        Please, cultural sensitivity here please ! You should have Rasputin listed first. As for the state of Russian science, sounds like laments heard in UK, USA, OZ etc. The existence of untreated people obsessing over incoming stones seems to be evidence that mental health services are lacking.

        Out of a bored curiosity, what was insane about Jesus ? Witty factual response please, life is too short for rehashes of tedious guesses fresh from the 1800s.

        1. Lars Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: stroll on

          "what was insane about Jesus" He was a leftist.

        2. Tom 7

          Re: stroll on

          Witty factual response when you provide factual evidence for the imaginary Jesus.

          There is a possibility that someone who may have been alive at around the same time he may have lived may have written about him but that wouldn't stand up in a civil court as evidence.

        3. Just_this_guy

          Re: stroll on

          I'm game. He apparently believed that one or more demons lived inside a human, and that he could and did transfer said demons into multiple pigs. The only way that's not insane is if he was correct. This is a million miles from the default assumption, as many other explanations are much more likely. (He was deluded; he was a charlatan; he was using a metaphor and didn't expect to be taken literally; the events were honestly but incorrectly reported; the author was a liar; later revisions exaggerated or omitted details...)

          ("Insane" is a deprecated term in mental health circles. I'm suggesting JHC (if as described) was deluded.)

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: stroll on

            To be fair, looking at the 'recorded' acts of Jesus with skepticism is what real Biblical scholars do. There is no first hand recording of anything he did, it is all after the fact. Even assuming the original authors tried to stay close to the known facts (highly unlikely anyway) there is a 100% certainty that things were altered simply through the 'telephone game' effect.

            Most educated religious people will say "I don't know" a lot more than you'll ever them say "yes, (x) is absolutely true because the Bible says so". Again, even the Catholic Church acknowledges that the Bible isn't a verbatim fax direct from God and is a physical construct of Man. It's kind of hard for them not to acknowledge that, seeing a how they were the original editors and simply destroyed information that didn't jive with their purposes. The Church knows this, scholars know this, it is still the same subset of loons who refuse to acknowledge the facts and big up their own fictions. There's nothing to be done for those people except ignore them.

    2. Lars Silver badge

      Re: stroll on

      He will get more moving to the USA creating The Church of the Speaking Stone.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Objects may be heavier than they appear...

    I'd like to know what scale they attempted to use for the weighing, Should have used their largest scales, the one with the duck at the other end.

    1. Katie Saucey
      Happy

      Re: Objects may be heavier than they appear...

      Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science? I dub you, Big John, Sir John, a knight of the round table.

  8. Whiznot

    Breyv is not a loon. The man is simply a con man on the make who's trying to capitalize on ignorance and fear. There is a good chance that soon Breyv will be traveling in style with a harem.

    1. Don Jefe

      Conman, certainly. Loon, probably. That's the thing with conmen, CEO's and politicians, they are actually convinced of their own bullshit. It may begin as a ruse but after a while they perfect the act to the point it is no longer an act, it is their actual perception of reality and it is only reinforced when they experience successes.

      When you buy into your own scam and start believing your own lies, that's when you cross the line into lunacy.

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        I disagree

        I don't believe that Elron even at his most drug addled ever believed the guff he peddled. This guy, on the other hand, I suspect is just a common loony who we'll never hear about again. (or he's a prankster in which case "well played".

    2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      I don't care whether Breyv is a loon. But what did he smoke?

  9. Interceptor
    Alien

    Handling something from space that crashed near the most polluted place on earth? What could possibly go wrong!

    1. james 68

      New Jersey? since when was that in Russia?

  10. madmalc

    Tap it and unwrap it

    Maybe they thought it was an intergalactic chocolate orange?

    1. Danny 14

      Re: Tap it and unwrap it

      good thniking. If not a chocolate orange I wonder if there was a toy inside it?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typical

    1. Survived the hostility of space *tick*

    2. Survived entering through planet's atmosphere *tick*

    3. Survived on impact *tick*

    4. Survived contact with humans ...

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: Typical

      1. Survived the hostility of space *tick*

      I'm not sure that space, where nothing happens for long periods of time, is very hostile to rocks, up until the point at which they manage to hit something.

      2. Survived entering through planet's atmosphere *tick*

      Entered Earth's atmosphere, had its surface heated to thousands of degrees centigrade and promptly exploded into lots of smaller bits, injuring ~1000 people over a wide area.

      3. Survived on impact *tick*

      Thousands of pieces of various sizes were either vapourised, or hit various things on the surface, suffering differing degrees of damage.

      4. Survived contact with humans ...

      The one piece of debris in question, which was what was left after a large explosion and collision with a lake, and was already so damaged that simply dropping it again from a small height caused it to split into several smaller pieces...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Typical

        Are you German?

        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

          Re: Typical

          No. Are you racist?

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: Typical

            Are Germans a race?

  12. Jim McCafferty

    Anything unusual in the composition analysis? 23% unknown for instance? Was there a glowing green tinge to the fragment.

    Oh well. Wait for the next one.

  13. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    "My god, it's full of stones!"

    Class! Well done :-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "My god, it's full of stones!"

      :) I loved that site

  14. Maharg
    Boffin

    Reentry?

    “On February 15 it intercepted the Earth at a shallow angle and was traveling at 54,000km/h before it exploded about 23km off the ground due to the heat and pressure of reentry.”

    I might be mistaken, but shouldn’t that be

    - “due to the heat and pressure of ‘entry’.“ ?

    As it didn’t leave the earth’s atmosphere to reenter, it just entered?

    (icon for irony)

  15. madmalc

    I think that's a case of justifiable pedantry

  16. Stevie

    Bah!

    "More than a dozen stones have been raised but only four or five have been judged fragments of the one true rock."

    Presumably the chief characteristic being the word "Chelyabinsk" written all the way through it.

  17. Steven 1
    Go

    Polish that son of a bitch Makka Pakka!

    1. TWB

      That is terrible!

      But made me laugh - upvote.

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