Russian Meteorites

A bright flash seen over Kyiv was probably a meteorite, Ukraine's space agency said Thursday, after officials denied it was a satellite or a Russian missile attack.

Russia is scrambling to bring home three astronauts -- two Russians and one American -- who are stuck aboard the International Space Station after a meteorite damaged the spacecraft that was due to return them to Earth.

Russian divers Wednesday pulled from a murky lake in the Urals a half-tonne suspected meteorite said to have been part of a meteor whose ground-shaking shockwave hurt 1,200 people in February.

A meteorite that entered Earth's atmosphere and slammed into Russia's Urals in February had broken off from a large asteroid and collided with another space body several million years ago, a Russian scientist said.

Russian officials on Tuesday proposed ideas ranging from planting beacon transmitters on asteroids to megaton-sized nuclear strikes to avert the threat from meteor collisions with the Earth.

It is no coincidence the first videos that captured the images of a meteorite breaking apart over central Russia on Friday were shot from drivers' dashboard cameras.

As Russia assesses the damage from the meteorite shower that rained down on Friday on the central region of the country, experts in the United States said the fragments of space rock could bring a small fortune in hidden treasure to those quick enough to find and scoop them up.

Divers scoured the bottom of a Russian lake on Saturday for fragments of a meteorite that plunged to Earth in a blinding fireball whose shock-waves injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes.

"I was driving in the car across the square. Suddenly the square lit up with a bright, bright light, not a normal light," said Vasily Rozhko.

A bright flash seen over Kyiv was probably a meteorite, Ukraine's space agency said Thursday, after officials denied it was a satellite or a Russian missile attack.

Russia is scrambling to bring home three astronauts -- two Russians and one American -- who are stuck aboard the International Space Station after a meteorite damaged the spacecraft that was due to return them to Earth.

Russian divers Wednesday pulled from a murky lake in the Urals a half-tonne suspected meteorite said to have been part of a meteor whose ground-shaking shockwave hurt 1,200 people in February.

A meteorite that entered Earth's atmosphere and slammed into Russia's Urals in February had broken off from a large asteroid and collided with another space body several million years ago, a Russian scientist said.

Russian officials on Tuesday proposed ideas ranging from planting beacon transmitters on asteroids to megaton-sized nuclear strikes to avert the threat from meteor collisions with the Earth.

It is no coincidence the first videos that captured the images of a meteorite breaking apart over central Russia on Friday were shot from drivers' dashboard cameras.

As Russia assesses the damage from the meteorite shower that rained down on Friday on the central region of the country, experts in the United States said the fragments of space rock could bring a small fortune in hidden treasure to those quick enough to find and scoop them up.

Divers scoured the bottom of a Russian lake on Saturday for fragments of a meteorite that plunged to Earth in a blinding fireball whose shock-waves injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes.

"I was driving in the car across the square. Suddenly the square lit up with a bright, bright light, not a normal light," said Vasily Rozhko.