Russian scientists 'locate site of Evenkia meteorite’s impact'

A giant shiny ball was filmed sweeping across the sky around 19.30 local time on 15 March. 

It split into two parts before hitting the ground in the north of Krasnoyarsk region.

A newly-released exclusive video by major local news website NGS.ru caught the moment of the meteorite dividing after entering atmosphere.

An expedition from Russia’s leading Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry was sent from Moscow to try and locate the place where it fell. 

Today the scientists reported that their expedition was a success, and shared pictures from a small village of Uchami where they believe the space guest hit the ground. 

It broke through a one-metre thick layer of ice of on the Podkamennaya Tunguska river, with at least one fragment ending at the bottom of the river. 

The New Tunguska meteorite was about one meter long, and wasn’t as fast as the super bolide that rocked Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, causing panic and injuries , said researcher Victor Grokhovsky from Ural Federal University. 

Yet many locals who lived close to the area where the meteorite fell said they felt ground shake and thought that something exploded. 

‘I was home when I heard loud thunder which sounded like an explosion. There was a huge glow, floor trembled and dry branches fell of a birch tree in the yard’, said Natalia Moskvitina, head of Uchami Evenk village. 

‘I panicked and called my brother who lives some 300 metres away.

‘He said he wondered if this was a plane crash.’ 

An international Russian-Finnish expedition will set off to Siberia in summer 2019 to search for fragments of the New Tunguska meteorite. 

The site of the meteorite fall is 420 kilometres from the location of the  monumental Tunguska Event 111 years ago. 

More than 2,000 square miles of forest was wiped out after a fireball - believed to be some 190 metres wide - tore through the atmosphere and exploded, according to scientists. 

An estimated 80 million trees were destroyed, and there were thousands of  charred reindeer carcasses. 

It is believed to have exploded three to seven miles above the earth’s surface  yet despite the carnage there was no impact crater. 

There were no reports of casualties in the sparsely populated area despite an explosion with the force of 185 Hiroshima bombs.

However, some experts have disputed the cause of  1908 Tunguska explosion.