Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2014

SMALL BODIES NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2014 case of the de W e all surely remember the huge 600 kg meteorite found in lake Chebarkul 8 months after the ex- plosion of a superbolide over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, occurred in February 2013. Along with the largest fragment were also recovered with relative ease and in a short time many other smaller fragments scatter- ed on the frozen plains characterizing that region in winter. Not always, though, the cir- cumstances of the discovery of meteorites are so favourable (and in fact it is usually the opposite), if we consider that on average about forty meteoroids capable of generat- ing superbolides enter each year the Earth's atmosphere and that only very few of them F ields and woods around Bene- šov. The shape of the landscape played a key role in the discovery of meteorites pro- duced by the bo- lide. [Aktron]