Victor Grokhovsky, researcher from Ural Federal University, was awarded the title of the scientist of the year according to Nature journal.
London, December 17 – UrFU Press Office. Associate Professor of the Institute of Physical Engineering, Ural Federal University, member of the Meteorites Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Victor Grokhovsky is the only representative of Russian universities who has entered the list of scientists who mattered this year according to Nature journal.
UrFU researcher gained global recognition thanks to his studies of the substance of the bolide that flew above Chelyabinsk on February 15, its structural characteristics and physical and chemical properties. Victor Grokhovsky participated in the operation of uplifting the largest fragment of the meteorite from the Lake Chebarkul.
“Of course this appreciation is super pleasant; I don’t even know why they’ve chosen me, - said Victor Grokhovsky to the reporter of “Gazeta.Ru”. – The most important thing is that the comments we gave after 50 minutes turned out to be accurate, and during 9 months we have not made any mistakes. And it’s absolutely fantastic that we managed to uplift the large fragment of the substance from Chebarkul, even from the Moon we brought less substance!”
It is to be recalled that the members of the meteorite expedition for more than 25 years led by Viktor Grokhovsky were the first to find the fragments of the fallen meteorite and deliver them to Yekaterinburg. Direct broadcast from the laboratory of the UrFU research center “Nanotech” attracted several thousand viewers from all over the world in the night of February 17-18; the university researchers demonstrated the meteorite debris for the first time and drew a conclusion about the type of the fallen space body (ordinary chondrite) and its composition.
Using the methods of optical and electronic microscopy in the UrFU research centre “Nanomaterials and nanotechnologies” an unusual diversity of plessite, sulfides and drift copper particles in the meteorite was observed.
Besides, the researchers managed to discover the abnormally low strength of the substance that determined the specific character of the space body destruction.
Nature, one of the most reputable scientific journals in the world, has named ten researchers whose studies and achievements played an important role in the development of the global science in the expiring year. The list also includes biologists Shoukhrat Mitalipov and Feng Zhang, virologists Deborah Persaud and Hualan Chen, science adviser of the American Civil Liberties Union Tania Simoncelli, astronomer Michel Mayor, diplomat Naderev Sano, anthropologist Kathryn Clancy and physicist Henry Snaith.
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SOURCE Ural Federal University