The Mary Sue

meteor strike

Winter Olympics to Hand Out Meteorite Fragments in Some Medals, Regular Gold Medals Suddenly Kind of Lame

So, that's reason #54,387 to win at the Olympics next year.

Being a gold-medal winning olympian isn't cool enough for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Next year, seven insanely lucky (and talented) athletes will win medals embedded with fragments of the meteorite that tore through Chelyabinsk, Russia last February.

Meteor Strikes Russia Injuring Hundreds, See Footage Here [Video]

by Ian Chant Feb 15th

So, Russia sure had an exciting morning, as a meteor zipping towards Earth shattered in the air over the nation's Chelyabinsk region, injuring hundreds of people and shattering windows, blowing the doors off of buildings and collapsing roofs. Thanks to the magic of omnipresent phone and dashboard cameras, lots of folks captured the meteor's flight -- and it's explosion an estimated 18 and 32 miles above the Earth's surface, which devastated the area -- and you can watch some of the amazing videos below.