Scientists on Monday said they had found the first pieces of the meteor that exploded in a blinding fireball over central Russia last week, dpa reported. A total of 53 pieces of the meteor were found around Chebarkul Lake, near the city of Chelyabinsk, all measuring just a few centimetres. Tests had shown that they were indeed pieces of meteor from space, said Viktor Grokhovski from Ural University in Yekaterinburg. They contained up to 10 per cent iron, he said, as well as the mineral olivine and sulphite salts. "It's a classical chondrite, one of the most common types of meteor," Grokhovski said. The meteor was most likely to be called the "Chebarkul Meteorite," he added. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry increased its estimates on the number of injured, saying 1,500 people had been cut by pieces of flying glass when the shockwaves from the meteor caused windows to shatter. Previously, the number had stood at 1,200. The meteor caused panic among residents in central Russia on Friday, when it streaked across the sky and exploded in the Urals region, raining down super-heated fragments and rattling buildings. Around 5,000 buildings were damaged and 100,000 people affected. Russian experts said the meteor exploded around 20 kilometres above the earth's surface. According to the European space agency Esa it had a diameter of 17 metres and weighed between 7,000 and 10,000 tons. It entered the earth's atmosphere travelling at a speed of around 64,000 kilometres per hour, Esa said. The strike was one of the biggest since the so-called Tunguska event in 1908. "What happened on Friday was extraordinary," said an Esa spokesman. The shockwave from what is believed to have been a meteor explosion felled trees covering a 2,000 kilometre squared area of forest in Siberia when it struck in 1908.
