Dutch Meteorite Stolen From Museum
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The Meteorite of Serooskerken fell to Earth in 1925, landing in the southwest Netherlands province of Zeeland (an apt name for a space rock, no?) It’s one of five meteorites that have ever landed in the country—I guess they don’t like going Dutch?—so it’s been prized ever since, safely stored in a museum. Or so they thought.
Scientists think Meteorite of Serooskerken is a chunk of the asteroid Vesta, a giant asteroid examined up close by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft a few years ago. The spacecraft found mountains, boulders, valleys, craters, and cliffs on the proto-planet, and took a bunch of high-resolution images of it (check out the 3D video of Vesta below). Vesta is one of the biggest, perhaps even the second largest, asteroid in the belt, and it’s estimated that 5-6% of meteorites that make it to Earth are from Vesta.
I’m not sure what a meteorite would be worth—on Ebay, various rocks purported to be meteorites are listed anywhere from $3.25 to $1,780 for one that supposedly came from Chelyabinsk. But at this point, given that there’s an amber alert out for the Meteorite of Serooskerken, it’s unlikely that anyone would buy it, so maybe the thieves will give it back.
Or maybe they’re aliens and are long gone. If you know, you should contact the Sonnenborgh Museum and Observatory.
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