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Credit: Dave Gheesling
In 2006, a farmer found a meteorite buried in a hillside in the Missouri town of Conception Junction (population 202). But only now has the out-of-this-world value of the space rock discovery come to light. Geochemist Randy Korotev of Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues have identified the space rock as a rare type of pallasite meteorite worth about $3.4 million, the researchers said today (Nov. 10). Only 19 other pallasites had ever been found in the United States before.
The meteorite traveled a long road to find its way into Korotev's hands. Researchers think this meteorite was once part of an asteroid that orbited the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. At some point, this fragment was knocked into an orbit that crossed Earth's path, and it was pulled down to our planet by gravity.
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