![]() ![]() He identified the stone as of a fragment of an asteroid. Korotev is a research professor in Earth and planetary sciences and an expert in lunar meteorites. To determine what kind of stone they had on their hands, the collectors brought the rock to Randy Korotev, who was well known among meteorite enthusiasts for his website about identifying space rocks. Louis chemist and amateur meteorite hunter and collector, heard about the rock and joined with friends to buy it. The farmer, who has asked to remain anonymous, had sawed off the end of the stone, revealing an interior impossible to mistake for that of a terrestrial rock. In 2006, a farmer found a meteorite buried in a hillside in the Missouri town of Conception Junction (population 202). For comparison, the most common meteorites sometimes sell for as little as $2 or $3 a gram and pieces of the first lunar meteorite found by a private collector went for $40,000 a gram, Korotev said. In its sliced and polished state, the meteorite is worth about $200 a gram. The Conception Junction meteorite is only the 20th pallasite found in the United States so far. Not only are they beautiful, they are rare. In fact, the pallasite is named for Peter Pallas, a German naturalist who first described one in 1749. The rock type is so odd in appearance, so different from earthly rocks, that it was the first type of rock to be identified as extraterrestrial. These meteorites consist of green olivine crystals embedded in an iron-nickel matrix – like cherries in a pie. The rock is a pallasite meteorite, weighing 17-kilograms, found in 2006 near Conception Junction (population 202) in northwest Missouri. Yet it is, scientists announced today (November 10, 2011). Louis last January, to show him their latest purchase, they had no idea the object would be worth up to $850,000. When two amateur meteorite hunters met with Randy Korotev at Washington University in St. ![]()
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