Meteorite fragments found in Russia explosion
On February 18, scientists from Russia's Ural Federal University announced that they had discovered meteorite fragments from the recent meteorite explosion in Chelyabin province.
One of them is called the Chebarkul meteorite, after a region in Chelyabinsk province.
Scientists confirmed finding meteorite fragments in the Chebarkul Lake area, Chelyabinsk region. (Photo: AFP)
Associate Professor Viktor Grokhovsky said the meteorite fragments were comparable to the Sikhote-Alin meteorite, the largest iron meteorite weighing nearly 70 tonnes, which fell to Earth in 1974.
Entering the Earth's atmosphere at cosmic speed, this meteor exploded into thousands of pieces, creating an iron meteor shower over an area of 3 square kilometers and a meteor shower within a radius of up to 400 kilometers.
According to scientist Grokhovsky's prediction, there will be no meteorite or meteorite explosions of similar size.
According to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, the meteorite explosion that occurred on the morning of February 15 had a destructive power of more than 300-500 kilotons, equivalent to 20 atomic bombs that the US dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.
The meteorite, nearly 15 meters in diameter and weighing about 7,000 tons, entered the atmosphere at a speed of 64,000 km/h and exploded at an altitude of 19-24 km above the ground, causing a meteor shower in the sky over the Chelyabin, Tyumen, Kyrgan and Sverdlovsk provinces, as well as many localities along the Ural Mountains.
More than 1,200 people in the above localities were injured, of which 50 people had to be hospitalized.
Russian scientists say that in the 19th and 20th centuries, there were hundreds of meteor showers in the world and in Russia, but they usually occurred at night and did not cause major damage to people or property./.
According to (TTXVN) - VT
