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The fragment is so large that divers have been unable to lift it. Instead, it's been dragged along the bottom of the lake on a metal sheet. At 1,257 pounds--that's 570 kilos--It will be almost as big as the Holsinger meteorite, which landed in Arizona 50,000 years ago, and broke the scales when it was weighed earlier today. The rock will be tested to verify that it is from space and not from somewhere more mundane.

The brilliant streak seen on Friday night in the skies over central Ohio was a piece of an asteroid or comet that was 2 to 3 feet across and hit the atmosphere at 113,000 mph, a NASA official said yesterday. The bright flash of light at 11:33 p.m. prompted some people to call Columbus police to ask what it was while officers chatted about the event over their radios. “The initial trajectory suggests it passed over Columbus, Ohio, moving slightly north of west,” Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office told The Dispatch in an email. Cooke said there were...

Look for the 2013 Perseid meteor shower to be at its prolific best from late late August 11 until dawn August 12! Great times to watch: after midnight and before dawn on August 11, 12 or 13. We give the nod to Monday, August 12 – in the hours between midnight and dawn. But any of these mornings should be fine for watching this year’s Perseid shower. At dusk and early evening on August 11, the waxing crescent moon shines between the planet Venus and the star Spica. The planet Saturn is found above Spica. The Perseids are a summertime...

August 5, 2013 – SIBERIA - Having an official task to draw up a geological map of the region, a young geologist ended up running into something so unique, outstanding and mysterious that it would still puzzle scientists more than six decades later – the Patomskiy Crater. A host of theories have been put forward in the intervening years: that the crater was created by an ancient civilization, or by prisoners at a top secret Stalin labor camp, or by volcanic activity, or by a meteorite, or by an underground hydrogen explosion, or by a UFO. And even more...

It's well known that the dinosaurs were wiped out 66 million years ago when a meteor hit what is now southern Mexico but evidence is accumulating that the biggest extinction of all, 252.3m years ago, at the end of the Permian period, was also triggered by an impact that changed the climate. While the idea that an impact caused the Permian extinction has been around for a while, what's been missing is a suitable crater to confirm it. Associate Professor Eric Tohver of the University of Western Australia's School of Earth and Environment believes he has found the impact crater...

May 17, 2013: For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year. They've just seen the biggest explosion in the history of the program. "On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've...

A LARGE meteor was spotted in the sky above Cornwall in the early hours of this morning. A giant green meteor was spotted by astronomers in the skies above Cornwall Experts have said the phenomenon was likely to have been debris from Halley's Comet. The large lump of space rock was seen by people across England and Wales and Twitter was abuzz with reports of sightings. A meteor spotter with the handle @VirtualAstronomer, wrote "The meteor fireball was witnessed from Cornwall to the Scottish [sic] borders." A man Tweeting from Nottingham, @TwitFlickR, described it as a "green fireball that lasted...

A bright meteor briefly outshined the lights of New York City Friday evening (March 22), according to reports by witnesses who used Twitter and the Internet to report sightings of the fireball streaking over a broad stretch of the U.S. East Coast. "Strange Friday night … a meteor passed over my house tonight!" wrote one New Yorker writing as Yanksmom19. The first fireball sightings came at about 8 p.m. EDT (0000 March 23 GMT) and sparked more than 500 witness reports to the American Meteor Society. Reports of the meteor flooded Twitter from New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. "The...

Network of stations with seismometers and air pressure sensors detected the blast waves A network of seismographic stations recorded spectacular signals from the blast waves of the meteor that landed near Chelyabinsk, Russia, as the waves crossed the United States. The National Science Foundation- (NSF) supported stations are used to study earthquakes and the Earth's deep interior. While thousands of earthquakes around the globe are recorded by seismometers in these stations--part of the permanent Global Seismographic Network (GSN) and EarthScope's temporary Transportable Array (TA)--signals from large meteor impacts are far less common. The meteor explosion near Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15,...

A Super Fast Comet Is Headed For Mars The EconomistMarch 5, 2013Shutterstock A PAIR of middle-aged tourists (see previous post) are not the only thing headed for Mars. Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is also on its way. Discovered on January 3rd, some calculations of its orbit, according to Phil Plait, the rather good “Bad Astronomer”, have it passing 37,000km above the surface of the planet in October 2014—roughly the height at which communication satellites orbit Earth, and a remarkably close shave by cosmic standards. An official NASA website puts the most likely “close-approach” distance between the comet and Mars...

Trajectory apparently began in near-Earth asteroid group ApolloAstroboffins have figured out where the Chelaybinsk meteorite came from using the power of maths and videos shot by witnesses in Russia.Click here for VideoJorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin of the University of Antioquia in Colombia have come up with a preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the meteor, which smashed into the city in the Urals completely unexpectedly two weeks ago. By combing through the witness videos and using trigonometry, the astronomers have determined that the meteorite came from the Apollo class of asteroids in our Solar System's space rock belt. The...

Poring over crowd-sourced footage, researchers Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, were able to use "simple trigonometry to calculate the height, speed, and position of the rock as it fell to Earth," says BBC News. More importantly, the duo was able to find out where Russia's most famous meteor was likely born. Using astronomy software developed by the U.S. Naval Observatory, Zuluaga and Ferrin gathered enough data to trace the meteoroid's origins in outer space. The information included the meteor's relative angle to the horizon, the shadows it cast, and video timestamps of...

Explanation: A meteoroid fell to Earth on February 15, streaking some 20 to 30 kilometers above the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia at 9:20am local time. Initially traveling at about 20 kilometers per second, its explosive deceleration after impact with the lower atmosphere created a flash brighter than the Sun. This picture of the brilliant bolide (and others of its persistent trail) was captured by photographer Marat Ametvaleev, surprised during his morning sunrise session creating panoramic images of the nearby frosty landscape. An estimated 500 kilotons of energy was released by the explosion of the 17 meter wide space rock with...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A streak of light that apparently sparked several reports across Southern California was not considered to be a public threat, according to fire officials. Over 40 reports from eyewitnesses around the Southland and statewide reported the sight to the American Meteor Society (AMS) around approximately 10:30 p.m. on Thursday night. Residents from cities as far north as Sacramento, Pismo Beach and Santa Barbara and as far south as Malibu and Costa Mesa reported a “brief tail of light” – described as everything from blue to white to bright green in color – traveling in a east-southeast...

A Russian policeman works near an ice hole, said by the Interior Ministry department for Chelyabinsk region to be the point of impact of a meteor seen earlier in the Urals region, at lake Chebarkul some 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Chelyabinsk February 15, 2013 (Reuters / Chelyabinsk region Interior Ministry) Russian scientists investigating the meteorite explosion in the Urals explained the nature of the event that caused havoc in the region. NASA said the shockwave force was equal to a 500-kiloton explosion – 30 times the Hiroshima blast.­The object was identified as a solitary 10-ton bolide by...

At a news conference Friday, NASA scientists said the object that exploded over Russia was a “tiny asteroid” that measured roughly 45 feet across, weighed about 10,000 tons and traveled about 40,000 mph. The object vaporized roughly 15 miles above the surface of the Earth, causing a shock wave that triggered the global network of listening devices that was established to detect nuclear test explosions. The force of the explosion measured between 300 and 500 kilotons, equivalent to a modern nuclear bomb, according to Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,...

Jodi Hernandez reports on the cosmic close encounter that the earth is experiencing tonight and the real one Russia experienced this morning. On a day that had a lot of people talking about meteorites and asteroids, a fireball of some sort was seen streaking across the Bay Area skies. The fireball was seen around 7:45 p.m. There are reports into the newsroom from people as far north as Fairfield and as far south as Gilroy. It was also seen in Sacramento, Newark, Walnut Creek, and St. Helena. It was bluish in color and appeared to be heading straight to the...

Video Linky Here

Pretty spectacular — and a little frightening, one might imagine, if one of these streaked across your field of vision.  Russia Today’s English-language service reports on the phenomenon observed over the last several hours, which also shattered windows in the Urals region as the meteor exploded in the atmosphere (via The Corner):

Moscow (CNN) -- A meteor streaked through the skies above Russia's Urals region Friday morning, before exploding with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings and left about 1,000 people hurt The number of injured has continued to rise through the day as new reports come in from across a swath of central Russia. Most of those hurt are in the Chelyabinsk region, the news agency said. The vast majority of injuries are not thought to be serious. About 3,000 buildings have sustained damage -- mostly broken glass -- as a result of the shock waves caused by...

An asteroid measuring up to 20km across hit South Australia up to 360 million years ago and left behind the one of the largest asteroid impact zones on Earth, according to new research published today. The impact zone in the East Warburton Basin was buried under nearly four kilometres of earth, said Dr Andrew Glikson, a visiting fellow to the Australian National University's Planetary Science Institute and a co-author of the paper. "It's significant because it's so large. It's the third largest impact terrain anywhere on Earth found to date," Dr Glikson said. "It's likely to be part of a...

The meteor explosion over Russia that injured more than 500 people and damaged hundreds of buildings was not caused by an asteroid zooming close by the Earth today (Feb.15), a NASA scientist says.

Russia's controversial Liberal leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has blamed Americans for today's meteorite scare, local media report. "Those were not meteorites, it was Americans testing their new weapons," Mr. Zhirinovsky confessed to journalists. "[US Secretary of State] John Kerry wanted to warn [Russia's Foreign Minister] Lavrov on Monday, he was looking for Lavrov, and Lavrov was on a trip. He meant to warn Lavrov about a provocation against Russia," he said.

A 10-ton meteor exploded in the sky above Russia on Friday, causing a shockwave that blew out windows injuring some 400 people and sending fragments falling to the ground in the Ural Mountains.

ATTN MODERATOR: This article is NOT copied, but authored 100% by myself (and x-posted at Reaganite Republican) with the exception of one small quote from Russia Today near the bottom (duly noted and linked) All orginal Russian info/data sources noted and linked at the bottom, as always... _________________________________________________________ Some pretty serious damage was delivered upon six Russian towns -and hundreds injured- when a hefty meteorite streaked across the sky, approached the Earth's surface in Chelyabisk Oblast (region) of the southern Ural Mountains near the border with Kazakhstan, then exploded early this morning, cca 9:30-10AM local time. Fragments fell and windows shattered as many...

A series of explosions in the skies of Russia’s Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working. According to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

ART CASHIN: Forget The Debt Ceiling — Traders Are Buzzing About The Gigantic Asteroid Barreling Towards Earth Sam RoJan. 8, 2013, 8:46 AMWith no major economic, earnings, or political news, yesterday turned into one of the most boring trading days in a very long time. According to UBS's Art Cashin, this gave the New York Stock Exchange floor traders time to chat about various things. One of those things: the gigantic asteroid heading toward earth. From this morning's Cashin's Comments: And You Thought The Debt Ceiling Was All You Had To Worry About – Trading was slow enough yesterday that...

(10-18) 15:07 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A bright flash across the sky and a shaking boom awed Bay Area onlookers Wednesday evening, and one scientist says souvenirs of the phenomenon might be strewn in the hills around Martinez. A meteor, perhaps the size of a small car when it hit the Earth's atmosphere, put on a spectacular lightshow at 7:45 p.m. that was visible throughout the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern and Central California. The accompanying noise was the meteor's sonic boom as it traveled faster than the speed of sound, said Jonathan Braidman, an astronomy instructor at Oakland's...

On Monday, Jupiter took a massive hit from a meteor, which was spotted by amateur astronomers based in the US—and if previous evidence is anything to go by, it could have saved Earth from a massive collision in the process. Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisconsin, was gazing at Jupiter on Monday when he saw a bright, white flash on the surface of the planet. When he posted his observation online, another astrophotographer, George Hall, discovered he'd unknowingly captured the massive explosion on video. Turns out it was probably a meteor striking the surface of the planet—and you can watch the...

LOTUS (CBS13) – People from all over the world are in the tiny town of Lotus in El Dorado County looking for something that’s out of this world, but leave it to a stay-at-home mom walking her dog to find a precious meteorite. The rock Brenda Salveson found is 17 grams, equal to just over a tablespoon of sugar. But when it comes in the form of an asteroid, its weight has no boundaries. “I was lucky, blessed, good karma,” Brenda said. “It was sitting there at my toes like an Easter egg.” An egg? More like a diamond in...

Speaking to SpaceWeather.com, Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s MEO office says, “The energy is estimated at a whopping 3.8 kilotons of TNT, so this was a big event,” he continues. “I am not saying there was a 3.8 kiloton explosion on the ground in California. I am saying that the meteor possessed this amount of energy before it broke apart in the atmosphere. [The map] shows the location of the atmospheric breakup, not impact with the ground.” The event that rattled windows, set off car alarms and glaringly bright enough to be seen in early morning daylight was also recorded...

LOS ANGELES | Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:22pm EDT (Reuters) - A rare daytime meteor was seen and heard streaking over northern Nevada and parts of California on Sunday, just after the peak of an annual meteor shower. Observers in the Reno-Sparks area of Nevada reported seeing a fireball at about 8 a.m. local time, accompanied or followed by a thunderous clap that experts said could have been a sonic boom from the meteor or the sound of it breaking up high over the Earth. "It probably would have exploded as it entered the atmosphere," said Mike Smith, a meteorologist...

If you enjoy the sight of "shooting stars" then make plans to be out looking skyward during the predawn hours on Wednesday (Jan. 4) when a strong display of Quadrantid meteors may appear. This first meteor shower of the year may end up being one of the best of 2012. To paraphrase Forrest Gump: The Quadrantid meteor shower is like opening up a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get! Indeed, the Quadrantids are notoriously unpredictable, but if any year promises a fine display, this could be it. Peak activity is due to occur early on...

Stargazers, get thee to the closest open space you can find! Astronomers say tonight may be the best time to view the Perseid meteor shower — one of the most spectacular (and reliable) of the annual meteor showers. The shower, which is visible across the nation, is not expected to peak until Saturday night. But the peak coincides with a full moon, meaning that night's dazzling display of tiny streaks of light shooting across the sky — sometimes as fast as 60 to 120 meteor streaks per hour — won't be so dazzling. The light of the moon will get...

A surprise meteor shower spotted in February was likely caused by cosmic "bread crumbs" dropped by an undiscovered comet that could potentially pose a threat to Earth, astronomers announced today (July 27). The tiny meteoroids that streaked through Earth's atmosphere for a few hours on Feb. 4 represent a previously unknown meteor shower, researchers said. The "shooting stars" arrived from the direction of the star Eta Draconis, so the shower is called the February Eta Draconids, or FEDs for short. The bits of debris appear to have been shed by a long-period comet. Long-period comets whiz by the sun very...

Portuguese scientists have found a depression on the Atlantic Ocean floor they think may be an impact crater. The roughly circular, 6km-wide hollow has a broad central dome and has been dubbed the "Fried Egg" because of its distinctive shape. It was detected to the south of the Azores Islands during a survey to map the continental shelf. If the Fried Egg was made by a space impactor, the collision probably took place within the past 17 million years... It lies under 2km of water about 150km from the Azores archipelago. The depressed ring sits roughly 110m below the...

Tuesday evening, residents across Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk, Va., dialed 911 to report what sounded what a large explosion. Today, a NASA scientist explained that it might have been a meteor. The area is home to several military bases, so residents are accustomed to loud sounds. This was out of the ordinary, though; several 911 callers reported a loud noise that rattled their screen doors and windows. One woman told the local television station, WAVY, that it felt like an earthquake. That's not uncharacteristic for a sonic boom created by a meteor, said Joe Zawodny, a senior research scientist...

'Numerous export enquiries' for Meteor missile, says UK MoD By Craig Hoyle With development work on MBDA's Meteor entering its final year, the UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the beyond visual-range air-to-air missile has attracted strong international interest. "Meteor has been the subject of numerous export enquiries from around the world, with some nations considering the possibility of making an order," the MoD's Defence Equipment and Support organisation said in its Desider publication. Being developed for partner nations France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK as a replacement for the Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM, the Meteor weapon system...

Remember Halley's comet? Twenty-five years ago thousands of people peered through telescopes to see it whiz by. Early Saturday morning stargazers will have the chance to see bits of the comet rain down during the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Meteor showers are named after the constellation that their radiant is in, in this case -- the constellation Aquarius. The shower stems from the "water jar" near one of the constellations brightest stars, Eta Aquariid. NEWS: Did the Greeks See Halley's Comet First? The Eta Aquarids are created by bits of material from Halley's Comet as it travels through the...

Explanation: The Peekskill meteor of 1992 was captured on 16 independent videos and then struck a car. Documented as brighter than the full Moon, the spectacular fireball crossed parts of several USA states during its 40 seconds of glory before landing in New York. A video of the fireball beyond a high school football game in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, is pictured above. The resulting meteorite is imaged here, and was found to be composed of dense rock and has the size and mass of an extremely heavy bowling ball. If you are lucky enough to find a meteorite just after...

QUADRANTID METEOR ALERT: Earth is about to pass through a narrow stream of debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. "Peaking in the wee morning hours of Tuesday, Jan. 4, the Quads have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour (varies between 60 and 200)," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "What makes this year so special is that the Moon is New on the night of the peak, so there will be no interference from moonlight." PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE: After the meteor shower, observers in Europe, northern Africa, the Middle...

Skywatchers, grab your blankets. December's night sky spectacular will feature the best meteor shower of 2010 as well as the only total lunar eclipse of the year -- sights that should outshine any New Year's Eve fireworks display in terms of sheer wonder. The massive Geminid meteor shower returns every year, so you'll have more chances if the cold proves too daunting on the night of Dec. 13. But anyone in North America who skips the total lunar eclipse on the night of Dec. 20 will be missing what promises to be the best lunar eclipse show until April...

The people of southern Serbia were disturbed by a flash of light and clamor, which were reportedly caused by a falling meteor. Blinding lightning was also seen by residents of northern Macedonia and southeastern Kosovo. Part of the meteor fell in the region of Grdelica Gorge in southern Serbia. Witnesses claim that they've seen a lighting object falling over the Sarajevo bridge at the entrance of Grdelica Gorge. The light was blinding accompanied by a deafening noise, Radio-Television Serbia reports. Regional information centers in Nis and Vranje say the meteor ripped through the sound barrier over Surdulica village towards...

An ancient meteor strike on Mars has revealed the first direct evidence of how warm liquid water may have shaped a habitable underground environment. Images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed the first carbonate rocks found inside Leighton Crater at a level that was once buried 4 miles (6 km) below the red planet's surface.

PICTURE: MBDA reveals clipped-fin Meteor for F-35 By Stephen Trimble MBDA has revealed a slightly modified Meteor that would allow four of the beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles to be stored inside the Lockheed Martin F-35. A miniature Meteor mock-up featuring four clipped fins appeared for the first time in the company's display at the Air Force Association's Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington DC. The missile's total fin area is reduced by roughly 20% compared with the original design, says Rob Thornley, MBDA sales and business development executive. The new shape allows the Meteors to squeeze into the...

**Update -- Intel Hub -- RSOE EDIS is reporting that a 1,000 strong search team was tasked with finding the impact area and so far have been unable to locate it... Such a colossal event, so little media coverage. Around 3:10PM Sunday afternoon residents of Colombia were awestruck when the clear sky was cracked open by a massive fireball that exploded upon impact leaving a 300 foot wide crater and a lot of rattled nerves.

During my morning run at 5:56 am Central Daylight Time, I witnessed the brightest meteor that I have ever seen. It was early dawn and still relatively dark. It passed to the north of Mahomet, Illinois (near Champaign) from the east, heading west. It lasted for a while and if I had been alert enough, I might have had enough time to get the camera out which I carry & get a picture. However, that didn't happen & it takes the thing a while to boot up anyway. There was some green during part of of the meteor's flight, so...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Stargazers who cast their eyes skyward Thursday should enjoy two-for-one celestial treats. A heavenly threesome will appear after dusk, when a trio of planets glides above a fragile crescent moon. Later, the fabled Perseid meteor shower will adorn the night with up to 50 shooting stars an hour. "This is the astronomy night of the summer," said Arnold Pearlstein, who writes an astronomy column for the Sun Sentinel and teaches science for Miami-Dade schools. "The Perseid is one of the top showers of the year." The show begins at twilight, with the glow of the setting...

Showers are expected Thursday, but not the wet kind that have plagued Seattle all summer. The Perseid meteor shower will be visible Thursday night, and viewing conditions should be optimal. The meteor shower appears every year as the Earth enters a band of dust that trails the comet Swift-Tuttle. It's one of of the more reliable night-sky events for stargazers in Seattle, and this year's show could be easier to watch because of clear skies and limited moonlight.