Becoming an INSTANT millionaire: An Indonesian man’s home was struck by a meteorite worth £1.4 million($1,860,000).
- A meteorite worth nearly $2 million struck an Indonesian man’s home in August.
- The rare space rock was estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.
- It is now a possession of the US meteorite collector Kay Piatek.
In August, a 33-year-old coffin maker named Josua Hutagalung witnessed a massive rock smashing through his roof. As reported by Daily Mail, Josua was working on a coffin near his house when he saw the meteorite crashing through the veranda at the edge of his living room in Kolang, North Sumatra.
The space stone left a large hole in the tin roof and ended up buried 15cm(5.9in) deep in the soil beside the house. Its weight was 2.2kg(4.8lb). Excitingly, the meteorite was estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.
Usually, meteorites are priced by gram. The cheapest one can be valued between $0.50 to $5.00 per gram, while the rarest space rocks can reach up to $1,000 per gram.
The meteorite that smashed Josua’s house turned out to be extremely rare.
It was classified as CM1/2 carbonaceous Chondrite, which is worth $857 per gram, or nearly $1.86million. The fresh millionaire told Kompas:
“When I lifted it, the stone was still warm and I brought it into the house. The sound was so loud that parts of the house were shaking too. And after I searched, I saw that the tin roof of the house had broken. I strongly suspect that this rock is indeed an object from the sky that many people call a meteorite. Because it is impossible someone deliberately threw it or dropped it from above.”
In an interview with The Sun, the father-of-three said he would use the money to build a church in his community. He added a touching confession:
“I have also always wanted a daughter, and I hope this is a sign that I will be lucky enough now to have one.”
US meteorite expert Jared Collins received dozens of offers to “jump on a plane and buy the meteorite.”
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the specialist had to take a risk and travel across the world for this unique cosmic event. Collins explains:
“It was in the middle of the Covid crisis and frankly it was a toss-up between buying the rock for myself or working with scientists and collectors in the US. I carried as much money as I could muster and went to find Josua, who turned out to be a canny negotiator.”
After the Chondrite was shipped to the United States, it was bought by the doctor and meteorite collector Kay Piatek.
Furthermore, three other fragments of the extra-terrestrial material were found in nearby areas. One of them was discovered in a paddy field less than 3km(1.9mi) from Josua’s home.
The rare meteorite was later named Kolang. Its interior is dark grey and black, with small light-colored speckles. The Head of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan), Thomas Djamaluddin, told Kumparan:
“It was a rock meteorite. The amount of waste rock from the formation of the solar system is very large in space. Most of the meteorites fall in locations far from settlements, such as oceans, forests, or deserts.”
