Today in History - October 9: Michelle's car became 80 times more valuable after massive crash

Seventeen-year-old Michelle Knapp was watching TV when she heard a massive crash outside her home in Peekskill, New York, on October 9, 1992.

She walked outside to see the second-hand Chevy Malibu she had just paid US$300 for seriously damaged.

Something had struck the parked car's boot and smashed a massive hole through to the bottom of the car.

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Beneath the Malibu, still warm and smelling of sulfur, was a large rock.

As banal as it may have seemed, the 30cm rock had come from outer space, flown through the atmosphere as a flaming green fireball, before smacking into Michelle's car.

The 12.5kg rock had travelled through space at up to 51,000km/h.

But slowing down in the atmosphere, it was clocking about 260km/h before it struck the Chevy.

Michelle would later sell the meteorite for $US50,000 (A$175,000 in today's money).

She also found a buyer for her mangled Chevy, selling it for US$25,000, a substantial profit.

Thanks to good timing, the meteorite's descent to Peekskill was well-documented.

In an era before smartphones, few people were quick enough to get their video cameras out in time to film a meteorite.

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But that Friday night in 1992, hundreds of high school football games were being filmed across America.

As a result, scientists had 16 different video angles of the meteorite.

The rock is believed to have come from the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter in the solar system.

There have been no reported human deaths from falling meteorites, but a meteorite from Mars is reported to have killed a dog in Egypt in 1911.

The impact reportedly vaporised the dog on impact, though scientists are sceptical of the claims.

NASA estimates about 44 tonnes of meteoritic material falls on Earth every day.

But almost all of it is vaporised in the atmosphere, appearing only as "shooting stars".

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For more from our Today in History archive, click here

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