Kirsty Mckenzie
AN out of this world meteorite has been sold – and it’s value is astronomical.
The fragment – that spent 4,500 of years passing through the Solar System before plummeting to earth – crashed into the small Leonese town of Reliegos in 1947.
Locals initially believed the sound of the colossal crash could be attributed to the nearby military airfield and were shocked to find a huge crater close to a farm, with no crashed plane in sight.
Although no one was hurt, residents were concerned they had come across an unexploded bomb and rushed to alert the military.
Soon after, Carlos Rodriguez Arango a chief engineer of the mining district in Leon appeared and identified the glistening 17g mass as a meteorite.
Nearly 70 years later and the space rock was put up for sale for an each-shattering €50,000.
But before starry-eyed buyers could complete the purchase, the seller of the space rock was charged with wrongful possession.
A removal man, named only as Juan Carlos M, was arrested by the Civil Guard after he attempted to sell the piece of meteorite on todocoleccion.net earlier this year.
The man told police he had found the piece of meteorite among the belongings of the late Manuel Laborde Werlinden, who died in 1993 and who was a member of the Natural Science Aranzadi, a scientific organisation.
The Civil Guard recovered the meteorite fragment, which will now go on show at the Spanish Museum of Natural Sciences.
The suspect denies any wrongdoing.
READ MORE
Catalunya Space Agency announces date of first mission
