Chelyabinsk meteor piece pulled out of Russian lake Enormous rock was found in the murky Chebarkul lake in the Urals, Russia Experts believe it is part of a meteor that hit Chelyabinsk eight months ago The rock broke up into at least three large pieces as scientists tried to lift it A half-tonne rock, suspected to be a meteorite, has today been pulled out of murky lake in the Urals, Russia. Experts believe it may be part of a meteor whose ground-shaking shockwave hurt 1,600 people in Russia in February. The dramatic recovery operation came eight months after a piercing streak of light lit up the morning sky in the central Russian region of Chelyabinsk in scenes some locals said made them think of the onset of a nuclear war. Scientists have recovered what could be giant chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteor from the bottom of the lake it crashed into in the Urals, Russia The meteor broke up into multiple pieces as it entered the atmosphere, scattering space debris across the industrial region. Much of the meteor landed in a local lake called Chebarkul that the divers entered in an operation covered live on Russian television. Live footage showed a team pull out a 1.5-metre-long (five-foot-long) rock from the lake after first wrapping it in a special casing while it was still underwater. The bolder was then pulled ashore and placed on top of a massive scale for the all-important weighing - an operation that quickly went partially wrong. A meteor fireball, pictured, crashed into Russia in February, It was part of a 656-feet wide asteroid called 2011 EO40. Spanish astrophysicists analysed fragments of the meteor and claim it came from the Apollo asteroid that regularly crosses passed earth as it orbits the sun A meteor that blazed across southern Urals in February was the largest recorded meteor strike in more than a century. More than 1,600 people were injured by the shock wave from the explosion, estimated to be as strong as 20 Hiroshima atomic bombs, as it landed near the city of Chelyabinsk. The fireball measuring 18 meters across, screamed into Earth's atmosphere at 41,600 mph. Much of the meteor landed in a local lake called Chebarkul. Other than the latest find, scientists have already uncovered more than 12 pieces from Lake Chebarkul since the February 15 incident. However, only five of them turned out being real meteorites. The rock broke up into at least three large pieces as scientists began lifting it from the ground with the help of levers and ropes. The scale itself broke the moment it hit the 570-kilogramme (1,255-pound) mark. "The rock had a fracture when we found it," one unnamed scientists told the lifenews.ru website in a live transmission. It weighed 570 kilogrammes before the pieces fell off. And then the scale broke," said the scientist. "We think the whole thing weighs more than 600 kilogrammes," he said. Experts cautioned however that it will take time before scientists can certify that the rock they pulled from the lake had indeed come from outer space. The Vesti 24 rolling news channel reported that divers had already recovered more than 12 pieces from Lake Chebarkul since the February 15 incident. Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border, took the brunt of the impact The station cautioned that only four or five them turned out being real meteorites. The meteor fireball that crashed into Russia in February was part of a 656-foot wide asteroid called 2011 EO40. In August, NASA satellites made the unprecedented measurements of the meteor which is thought to have released 30 times more energy than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Spanish astrophysicists analysed fragments of the meteor that were scattered across the Russian town of Chelyabinsk, where the meteor landed, and claim it came from the large Apollo asteroid that regularly crosses passed Earth as it orbits the sun. They added that the piece may have broken off because of the stress caused by the gravitational pull of the planets and the sun, or could have been caused by the asteroid hitting into something else during its orbit. Satellite data from Nasa has revealed that that four days after the bolide explosion, the faster, higher portion of the plume (red) had snaked its way entirely around the northern hemisphere and back to Chelyabinsk in Russia