Sylacauga: A Chunk Of Meteorite That Struck The Hip Of A Woman Sold For $7,500

A chunk of the Sylacauga meteorite was sold at auction for $7,500. This meteorite is known for hitting a hip of a woman from Alabama on Nov. 30, 1954.

The space rock crashed into the roof of Ann Hodges and hit her on her hip. It then developed into a massive bruise. She had become the focus of much attention, and her husband said that she did not recover from the incident. Hodges suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of 52, according to AOL.

Randy Mecredy, the museum director, said that the Hodges were simple country people. He thought that all the attention was her downfall -- at first. The Hodges owned the space rock. Later, it was donated to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

The space rock was sold at Christie's auction. Daryl Pitt, a meteorite consultant for Christie's, said that estimated at US$5,000 ($6,790) to S8,000, the 10.3-gram specimen of Sylacauga was sold for US$7,500 ($10,184) (US$728 ($989)/g. This includes the buyer's premium. He cited an example, stating that the price of 24K gold today is US$39.05 ($53)/g and so this specimen sold for 18.5 times its weight in gold.

Christie's auction also sold a piece of a Gibeon Meteorite that comes from the iron-rich core of an ancient asteroid. Pitt said that over half of the lots sold for their high estimate or more, including at US$37,500 ($50,922), a specimen that had the oldest matter mankind can touch. This referred to a carbonaceous meteorite from Chihuahua, Mexico, that is about 4.567 billion years old, according to Gizmodo.

The Sylacauga meteorite is also known as the Hodges meteorite. It is the first extraterrestrial object that injured a human being in the United States. This had become a worldwide publicity. It hit Ann Hodges while she was napping on a couch. This wounded her, yet she can walk. Now, the owner of this space rock has become the possessor of this space-related history.