* Astronomy

A new scientific expedition has set off for the crash site of a gigantic meteoroid that hit eastern Siberia, between the town of Bodaibo and the village of Balakhninsky near the Vitim River, in the early hours of September 25, 2002.
Researchers investigating the crater said this might be their last chance to find large fragments of the bolide, which they hope will provide them with some vital information about the space impact threat.
The previous three expeditions yielded nothing but cosmic dust grains.



Irkutsk University Observatory Director Sergei Yazev, who is leading the fourth expedition to the Vitim meteorite crash site, said his team would be following a new itinerary, drawn up after meticulous study of the seismic waves recorded by local monitoring stations during the incident.

The expedition participants will also try to solve the mystery of a hillside pyramid spotted in the area back in 1949. The pyramid, with a crater on top, is believed to be either the result of the impact of a super-dense celestial body or the result of a powerful volcanic eruption.
The force of the meteorite destroyed 40 square miles of forest and caused earth tremors felt 60 miles away. It was the second largest meteorite, after the famous Tunguska meteorite, to fall on Russian territory.

When the meteorite was falling, people in many places near the Bodaibo and Mama villages felt earth tremors as in an earthquake. They also "heard roar and splashes of light above the taiga forest far away." The passage of "a large luminous object" in the terrestrial atmosphere was also registered by American satellites.
Fragments of the meteorite had apparently exploded into shrapnel 18 miles above the Earth with the force of at least 200 tonnes of TNT.

A previous expedition from the Kosmopoisk scientific organization found an area
of about 100 square kilometres covered with burnt trees and pieces of the meteorite 60 kilometres from the village of Mama .