[meteorite-list] Divers Find Russian Meteorite Craters in Chebarkul Lake

[James Beauchamp]

I'm very skeptical here. The water would absorb almost all of the kinetic energy. Unless the lake is a few inches deep, craters are highly unlikely. This sounds like more urban legend.

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 27, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

> 
> http://rt.com/news/russian-meteorite-lake-craters-537/  
> 
> Divers find Russian meteorite craters in Chebarkul Lake
> rt.com
> February 27, 2013
> 
> Divers searching Chebarkul Lake in Russia's Urals region have found
> several craters that may be the impact zones of fragments of the
> now-famous meteorite that exploded over the area on February 15.
> 
> The underwater hunt for the rare stones was hampered by cold weather and
> light-obstructing mud stirred up from the bottom. The divers used
> powerful lights and probes to uncover several potential sites where
> meteorite fragments may have landed.
> 
> On Thursday, a team from Ekaterinburg will join in the search by
> conducting a magnetic survey of the prospect locations; the initial
> results could be ready as early as that evening.
> 
> Some fragments of the meteorite were retrieved in the Chelyabinsk
> region, which endured the bulk of the spectacular cosmic event. The
> biggest meteorite chunk discovered was about 1 kilogram. It is hoped
> that the fragments inside the lake could be much bigger, weighing dozens
> of kilograms.
> 
> Videos of the meteorite streaking across Russia's sky proved to be not
> only awe-inspiring for YouTube, but also served a scientific purpose:
> Two groups of researchers used the clips to calculate the meteorite's
> trajectory.
> 
> Colombian astronomers from the University of Antioquia in Medellin are
> believed to be the first to report their preliminary results last week
> at the scientific publishing website arxiv.org. A similar work by
> researchers at the Astronomical Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences
> came days later on Monday.
> 
> Both teams used the proven method of analyzing video footage of the
> meteorite's descent through a little bit of trigonometry. This time,
> however, the footage was taken by CCTV, car cameras and smartphones,
> rather than precisely calibrated observatory recorders.
> 
> The Russian meteorite was determined to be an Apollo-class asteroid, one
> of an estimated 5,000 near-Earth bodies orbiting the Sun and
> occasionally crossing the Earth's orbit. Most of these objects are
> spread out between the orbits of Venus and Jupiter.
> 
> Russian astronomers will report their findings later in March, but have
> already confirmed that the results published by the Columbian and Czech
> researchers correspond with their findings.
> 
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