Mona Sirbescu, a geologist at Central Michigan University, was approached by an anonymous man with an odd proposal. He brought with him a medium-sized brown rock. This rock had served as the man’s doorstop for the past 30 years, but he now had a sneaking suspicion that it was, in fact, of celestial origin. As it turns out, not only was he right, he was lucky: the meteorite was one of the most valuable that Sirbescu had even seen, both in terms of its scientific value and its monetary value, a respectable $100,000.
The man obtained the meteorite when he purchased a farmstead in 1988. The previous owner had actually seen the meteorite impact the ground at night in the 30s, but never thought of it as anything more than a novelty. According to Sirbescu’s analysis, the meteorite was composed of 88% iron-nickel and 12% pure nickel, a notable rarity here on Earth.
Sirbescu sent her findings to an associate at the Smithsonian, who backed them up and hypothesized that the object could be from the very earliest eons of the Solar System. The meteorite was sold to Central Michigan University for its stated value of $100K, ten percent of which was donated to the school as an act of good will. The meteorite has been officially designated the Edmore Meteorite after the town in which it was first found.
