Group of six small whole stone meteorites, displayed with shockwave glass, from the iconic Chelyabinsk meteor which fell over the southern Ural region of Russia on February 15, 2013. The six stones and the glass shard are displayed in a 2.75 x 3.25 x 1 plastic case with an informational card featuring an image of the Chelyabinsk fireball on the reverse. The stones presented in this box are from the Chelyabinsk event and show rich, black fusion crust, indicating that they were picked up very shortly after the fall, before they had time to rust or weather. The glass shard is an authentic piece of Chelyabinsk city window glass, shattered by the after effects of the event and personally collected at the site by a reputable meteorite professional. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Geoff Notkin of Aerolite Meteorites Inc. and the TV show Meteorite Men, as well as a specimen identification card.
By their very nature, fireballs are almost always short-lived. An extraterrestrial mass encounters our atmosphere at tremendously high velocity (often between 10,000 and 20,000 miles per hour). The air ahead of it is compressed, generating extreme heat, and the incoming mass begins to ablate while the air around it incandesces. On a small scale, this phenomenon is a meteor, and meteors can be witnessed almost anywhere there are dark skies, if one is patient enough. A very large meteor is described as a fireball or bolide, and the fireball seen over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013 is the most famous of them all. Not only was it an extremely bright bolide, visible from over a hundred miles away, but its shallow flight was of exceptionally long duration. Since most fireballs are brief at best, there are precious few instances of them being caught on video. Chelyabinsk was the exception. Car mounted video recorders (or dashcams) are popular in Russia and many such recorders captured astonishing footage of the fireball. Following a series of in-flight explosions, thousands of small meteorites rained down on the snow-covered ground outside of the city. Very shortly thereafter, the city itself was rocked by a massive shockwave that shattered windows and injured an estimated 1,200 people. This marked the first instance in recorded history of multiple people being injured by the effects of a meteorite. A remarkable collectible from the most thoroughly documented meteorite fall of all time.
