A Polish farmer by the name of Alfreda Landowska had a shock recently when a meteorite crashed into the roof of her cow shed at the Soltmany farm. Initially the police thought the call was a prank.
However, Landowska now looks set to easily recoup the funds needed to repair the building. The meteorite, apparently a chondrite derived from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is the first planetoid meteorite in Poland to be recovered immediately after its descent for 17 years - the previous one being in Baszkówka near Warsaw.
Space collectors are now offering the equivalent of £50 per gram for the spacerock, of which the largest piece is about the size of a human fist. The whole meteorite weighed roughly 1kg and should make an excellent investment.
Researchers at the Nikolaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork and Wroclaw University are studying the meteorite.
Landowska is not the only person who has had close encounters with a meteorite.
The famous Barwell meteorite, which fell on Barwell, Leicestershire, UK on Christmas Eve, 1965 now sells at around £200 per 3g fragment. The total size of the meteorite when all the fragments had been collected together was 'about the size of a Christmas turkey'.
Back in 1954, Ann Hodges of Alabama was actually struck by a meteorite whilst in her living room. The meteorite was donated to a museum, despite offers running into thousands of dollars.
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