A meteor that exploded over a Russian city left fragments in the bottom of Lake Chebarkul, according to The New York Times. Russian authorities were able to retrieve the rock, but it broke in three pieces in the process, as it weighed over 1,250 pounds.

In February, central Russia was rocked by a meteorite crash. The asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring more than a thousand people as it rained fireballs over a large, populated area, reports Reuters. The meteorite crash caused building damage, extreme injuries mostly from shards of glass, a shockwave, and sonic boom that left residents panicking.

On Wednesday, authorities finally located a fragment of the meteorite, after seven long months of searching for the space rock. It landed in the bottom of Lake Chebarkul, at an area 40 feet deep. The rock had been covered by around 8 feet of silt when it was detected through detailed sonar analysis. Its retrieval is no easy task either, as it took long-month planning to have the metro fragment lifted by a mechanical winch after divers secured it with ropes. Regional governor Mikhail Yurevich led the historic retrieval of the meteorite, reports the New York Times.  

The meteorite, about 4.5 billion years old in the estimate of Russian scientists, broke into three prices as it was being weighed; it literally broke the scales. (Watch the retrieval of the space rock here). The meteor had been a lot larger and heavier when it crashed into the Earth's atmosphere, according to scientists. The weight of the original space rock is in fact estimated to be as hefty as 10,000 tons.

The meteorite will be studied by scientists and will later be displayed in the regional museum.  The space rock has a dark, glassy and indented surface, which are reportedly the distinguishing characteristics of a meteorite.