back to article Russian boffins race to meteorite crash lake as shard prices go sky-high

Russian boffins have struck out on their own to find fragments of the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk on Friday morning - amid reports that pieces are fetching as much $10,000. An expedition found a crater in the ice over Lake Chebarkul, where the scientists believe pieces of the space rock landed. "The …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    Clearly....

    ...another kind of "space industry".

    1. proto-robbie
      Coat

      Re: Clearly....

      Psst, would you like come up and see my boloids?

    2. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: Clearly....

      In Russia, asteroid mines you.

  2. GBL Initialiser
    Alien

    There's going to be trouble when those giant aliens come looking for their golf ball

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      "You can take this meteorid from my cold, dead fingers!"

      From the hole in the ice: "Challenge accepted"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    10,000 tons

    or 10.000 tons?

    1. Chris Tierney

      Re: 10,000 tons

      at 17meters long it is conceivable to be around 10,000 tons.

      It would have to be very hollow to be only just 10 tons.

      1. Falanx
        Megaphone

        Re: 10,000 tons

        And it would have to be basically cubic to get anywhere *near* ten thousand tons. It's not sideritic, it's rocky, so it's approximate specific gravity would be a bit over *2*.

        Looks like particularly lazy maths. And that's not a novelty, comign from NASA.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 10,000 tons

      No. 10,000 tons.

    3. Zaphod.Beeblebrox

      Re: 10,000 tons

      All depends on your locale I imagine. In the US or GB, 10,000 tons. In Spain or Italy, 10.000 tons. Elsewhere, it might even be 10 000 tons. I should think it was pretty clear from the context, data being from NASA and all.

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: 10,000 tons

        To make it easy in Europe it is decimal comma 999.999,99 and in the odd part of the world it is decimal point 999,999.99. Annoying, some damned experience when dealing with databases having it wrong.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Re: 10,000 tons

          Are those metric or imperial tons.

          Given that I am openly rebelling against the metric version of the ton, and never use the actual imperial ton, and some days can't remember how to spell the metric version, I just use "ton" for everything.

          So given that the retards in Lockheed Martian, are the only dimwits left on the planet that use imperial, one could safely say that the ton, is the metric ton, with my spelling.

          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

            Re: 10,000 tons

            Seems like it was a mundane lump of peridotite rock - judging by density of over 3kg/cm3 and peridotite being a common material for stony meteorites...

          2. Psyx
            Happy

            Re: 10,000 tons

            "Are those metric or imperial tons."

            Doesn't really matter for purposes of approximation. The two measurements are happily pretty much the same.

        2. Vic

          Re: 10,000 tons

          > in Europe it is decimal comma 999.999,99

          Not so.

          I'm in Europe, and over here that would be 999,999.99.

          Vic.

      2. AndrueC Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: 10,000 tons

        I should think it was pretty clear from the context, data being from NASA and all.

        Pity it wasn't 'tonnes'. Mind you there's not a lot of difference - especially if it hits you on the bonce.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 10,000 tons

      If it had a diameter of 17 metres then, assuming a sphere, it's volume was about 2,600 cubic metres. Water is about 1 tonne per cubic metre, so 10,000 tons of rock is very plausible.

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: 10,000 tons

        Given it's occupants probably require a gaseous atmosphere to breath in just like us, isn't it likely that it IS hollow and therefore is far lighter than 10,000 tons? Some people just make dumb assumptions.

  4. Turtle

    Genuine...

    "Russian boffins have struck out on their own to find fragments of the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk on Friday morning - amid reports that pieces are fetching as much $10,000."

    And genuine pieces of the meteorite are selling for even more.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Genuine...

      Get out of here, Stalker.

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: Genuine...

        the fools! they'll never make it past the brain scorcher

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Genuine...

      Expect a lucrative black market for some time. People newer learn, but then again nor did the Catholic Church.

  5. Ivan Headache

    I came from space. It landed in a lake

    Don't go near the lake after dark or the................... . . . . . . . .

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: I came from space. It landed in a lake

      haha that misspell gives me an idea. it would be funny to go up to a complete stranger in the street and announce "I came from space!"..well maybe not that funny.

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        International pretend to be a space traveller day

        is next Thursday.

      2. Ivan Headache

        Re: I came from space. It landed in a lake

        It's just had eye surgery - it's playing havoc with my tryping.

        1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

          Re: I came from space. It landed in a lake

          It's just had eye surgery - it's playing havoc with my tryping.

          Take the bandage off :)

        2. breakfast Silver badge
          Go

          Re: I came from space. It landed in a lake

          On the upside after everyone else has been staring at the fantastic meteor display you will probably find yourself ideally positioned to escape the man-eating plants.

  6. Tim #3

    Could've been worse

    If that had come down over Iran or Israel it could have triggered a bit of a nasty incident, and if it had crashed to earth a few thousand kilometers to the West of the Urals instead, France would probably have surrendered.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Berlin Wall

    For a good few years there was a healthy market in East German concrete to gullible westerners.

    If this meteor was indeed a stone rather than iron, there's going to be lots of people paying top sums for any old bit of rock.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Berlin Wall

      Ever since the most recent Royal Institute Christmas Lectures ( a TV show aimed at children, but hey, I still learn things) I've desired an acid-etched slice of an iron nickel meteorite called an octahedrite. They showed a large specimen. The etching brings out Widmanstätten patterns, which are beautiful and can't be faked- for them to occur, the rate of cooling through a certain temperature range is no more than 10ºC per million years.

      Small samples are around £30 per gram.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octahedrite

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widmanst%C3%A4tten_pattern

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Berlin Wall

      Reminds me of when I was at school we had a talk from one of the Lunar Astronauts. In questions afterwards someone asked if he'd been able to keep a bit of moon rock for himself - his answer was no and in any case moon rock just looked like any other rock so even if he had no-one would have known if it was actually from the moon rather than something he'd picked up in his yard!

  8. Scott Broukell
    Pint

    Dig deeper !

    Isn't there a mission planned, or perhaps completed, to unearth the remains/core of the lump that fell at Tunguska? The theory behind this being that the heat from the air-burst/core melted the permafrost below the surface and it's remains slipped, gracefully, down into the depths of an ancient marshland/swamp, where, after a time, the permafrost froze again and encapsulated it for posterity. Given the shallow angle of attack in this recent incident, one imagines that there should be a trail of debris, along with a still rather warn to the touch, core, resting at some depth, in, or below, the bottom of said lake/lakeside. Russian engineers are no slouches when it comes to drilling in sub-zero environs, but constructing a robust platform for that purpose might pose a problem. Good luck peeps.

    1. Harvey Trowell

      Re: Dig deeper !

      No, you're thinking of Firefox Down.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Go

      Re: Dig deeper !

      Isn't there a mission planned, or perhaps completed, to unearth the remains/core of the lump that fell at Tunguska?

      There have been several. None have found anything yet.

      http://burro.case.edu/Academics/USNA229/tunguska.pdf

      1. lglethal Silver badge
        Go

        Re: Dig deeper !

        The belief is that the Tunguska meteorite exploded in the atmosphere and so nothing actually made it to Earth.

        Quite lucky really that it happened where it did, if it had happened over Europe - the loss of life could have been phenomenal.

        Mind you if it had happened over Europe and the loss of life had been phenomenal, then we would probably have developed space defenses by now, and be off exploring and settling the other planets in the Solar System... Hmmm....

    3. breakfast Silver badge

      Re: Dig deeper !

      There's no such thing as delving too greedily or too deep.

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Dig deeper !

        There's no such thing as delving too greedily or too deep

        ..Paris icon?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Skylab

    I recall 1979 when Skylab crashed to Earth in Western Australia. Several hundred tons of it were immediately available for sale to collectors.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    10,000 tons, really?

    Seems like a lot for an object roughly 55 feet in diameter, but I guess if its highly metallic then it makes sense....

    1. Psyx

      Re: 10,000 tons, really?

      "Seems like a lot for an object roughly 55 feet in diameter, but I guess if its highly metallic then it makes sense...."

      I think their estimate might be on the high side, or assuming a lot of metal content, but rock is surprisingly heavy!

      http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/top50stones.htm

      Granite is 2.75 tons per cubic meter.

  11. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    $33M damage

    It'd be ironic (not quite the correct word) if or when the total sales of rock reaches $34M.

  12. TimBiller
    WTF?

    Yes, a perfectly circular hole. After an alleged impact of that magnitude I'm astonished that there's actually any water left in the lake at all!

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Given that most of the meteorite has vapourised at about 30km height above ground after releasing 500kt TNT equivalent of energy I'm astonished that enough of it reached the lake to make such a big and nicely round hole...

  13. Tim Worstal

    Hmm

    I will admit, on wandering through Bath one day ( the ancestral city, home from in foreign) to find among the hippie stalls flogging joss sticks and Tibetan caps hand knitted from lentils, a bloke selling meteorite pieces.

    All packaged: he was just retailing. Can't remember the name of the company at all but there really is someone out there packaging and grading fragments. Chondrite, nickel/iron, as I say, I can't remember the name of the two men and a dog company that was doing this but I do indeed recall standing gape mouthed in admiration at the sheer free market wondrousness of it.

    It was a fiver or something for a few grammes of something not from this world.

    A complete blinder as a business, I was seriously impressed.

    1. Martin 15
      Alien

      Re: Hmm

      Well there is a TV serious about finding and selling chunks of other-worldly bodies.

      http://www.meteoritemen.com/

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Hmm

        Strangely compelling viewing as well. Not a bad way to make a living.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: Hmm

          I have a piece of metal (Nickel-Iron) meteorite that weighs in about 500g, been saving it up to make some kind of mystical jewellery along with some moldevite :)

  14. Steven Roper

    Where have I heard this sort of thing before?

    "Next morning, a crowd gathered on the common, hypnotised by the unscrewing of the cylinder. Two feet of shining screw projected, when suddenly, the lid fell off..."

    I need to catch a cold, and fast. Those bloboid bastards aren't injecting my blood into their own veins without a fight!

  15. taxman
    Happy

    Size matters

    '.......has found tiny pieces around 50mm in diameter....'

    Tiny? I'd be proud of that!

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