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4.5 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Crashes Through Man’s Roof, Is Worth $1.8 Million

Sometimes, good fortune does fall from the sky. This man on whom it was so generously bestowed is lucky it didn’t kill him.
The Kolang meteorite is worth $1.8 million, is most significant find of recent years 4 photos
Photo: Facebook / Josua Hutagalung
The Kolang meteorite is worth $1.8 million, is most significant find of recent yearsThe Kolang meteorite is worth $1.8 million, is most significant find of recent yearsThe Kolang meteorite is worth $1.8 million, is most significant find of recent years
Josua Hutagalung is a 33-year-old from Kolang, in North Sumatra, Indonesia, and he makes coffins for a living. This past August, he was at home working, when he heard the sound of a roof crashing on his house and felt the entire construction shake to its core.

He tells The Sun that he rushed to the place where the noise had come from and found a football-sized piece of rock buried some 15 cm (5.9 inches) into the ground. It was still hot to the touch and the fact that it had come through the roof could only mean one thing: it was a meteorite. He was right.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas, U.S. has recognized the rock as the Kolang meteorite, one of the most significant meteorite finds ever. It is some 4.5 billion years old and is classified as a CM1/2 carbonaceous Chondrite. The meteorite was 2.5 kg (5.5 pounds) but it split before the moment of impact, with the mass that landed on Hutagalung’s property weighing in at 1.8 kg (3.9 pounds).

According to The Sun, the worth of the Kolang meteorite is well over $1.8 million, based on how much pieces of similar rocks are fetching per gram on eBay. Hutagalung sold it to U.S. meteorite expert Jared Collins who acted on behalf of a known collector and offered him 30 years’ worth of salaries. With the average monthly pay in rural areas of Indonesia being around $300 (at best), a rough estimate of how much the man got would be $108,000, a large chunk of which he pledged to the local church. Just to compare.

Or, to put it simply, while Hutagalung was definitely incredibly lucky to have a meteorite fall on his property, his story is the difference between a collector’s Bugatti Veyron and what everyone else is driving.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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