Meteorites, Chelyabinsk Region, Russia
Chelyabinsk meteorite
Chelyabinsk LL5
The crust and the interior of a celestial stone in a single fragment.
210 000 ₽ · In stock — Gimenei shopping centre
- Epoch
- Before life began
- Age
- ≈ 4.5 billion years
- Origin
- Chelyabinsk Region, Russia
- Size
- 43 × 38 × 24 mm
- Weight
- 42 g
- Classification
- Stony meteorite (Chelyabinsk, chondrite)
- Ref.
- R–0305
The rock of this fragment formed within an asteroid before the planets appeared, and has lain so for four and a half billion years.
On the morning of 15 February 2013 the brightest fireball of the century blazed above Chelyabinsk. The explosion at an altitude of thirty kilometres tore the body into thousands of fragments; some of them split on striking the frozen ground.
This individual is one of those: the black fusion crust is torn away on one side, and the break exposes the pale matrix of the LL5 chondrite with inclusions of nickel-iron. Both natures of the stone are visible at once: the surface burnt by the atmosphere and the primordial substance of the Solar System.