This doorstop is really out of this world.
A Michigan man discovered that the 22-pound rock that he has used to prop open his door for the last 30 years is a meteorite worth a whopping $100,000, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The owner, who did not want to be identified, said he noticed the rock holding a door open at a farm he was about to buy in Edmore in 1988.
He said the farmer told him it was a meteorite that plunged to Earth in the 1930s – making “a heck of a noise when it hit” — and that he and his dad dug out the still-warm rock from a crater they found the next morning.
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When the new owner moved after a few years, he took the mystery rock, which he has kept as a doorstop and a show-and-tell item for his kids in school.
But he was unaware of how much the celestial relic was worth.
Opportunity came knocking this year when he learned about Michigan residents finding and selling pieces of meteorites.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute. I wonder how much mine is worth?’” according to CNN.
He reached out to Mona Sirbescu, a geology professor at Central Michigan University, to examine the oddly shaped rock.
“I could tell right away that this was something special,” said Sibescu, who determined the meteorite is made of 88.5 percent iron and 11.5 percent nickel.
Weighing 22 pounds, it’s also the sixth-largest recorded find in Michigan — and is believed to be worth $100,000, according to CMU.
“It’s the most valuable specimen I have ever held in my life, monetarily and scientifically,” Sibescu said.
For additional verification, a piece of the rock was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, which backed up the finding.
The Smithsonian and a mineral museum in Maine are considering buying the meteorite – now called “Edmore” — for display, according to CMU.
The man also has agreed to give 10 percent of the potential sale value to CMU for the study of earth and atmospheric sciences.
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