A museum in Maine is offering $25,000 for the remains of a space rock that left its mark in the sky before it landed on the border of the United States and Canada last week.
The fireball, visible in broad daylight and creating a sonic boom, was detected by radar.
NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Reconnaissance Science (ARES) Laboratory has calculated the “scattered area” near Calais where fragments of meteorites can be found.
Darryl Pitt, head of the meteorite division at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, said he is keen to study meteorite fragments that may contain valuable information about the solar system.
25,000 prizes will be awarded for the first meteorite fragment found to weigh 1 kilogram or more.
However, it was announced that the museum can pay for any specimen “regardless of size.”
Of the hundreds of meteorites that fall to Earth each year around the world, only eight to 10 are recovered, Pitt said.