Dutch Rock Is Long-Lost Meteorite

Dutch meteorite from 1800s — Marco Langbroek of the Vrije Universiteit (VU) of Amsterdam with the Diepenveen meteorite.

(Image credit: VU)

A hunk of rock found in a private collection is a rare meteorite, researchers have announced.

The brown-black rock, which is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, plummeted to Earth with a flash of light and a hissing sound on Oct. 27, 1873. It landed in a field near the Dutch village of Diepenveen.

But the tale of this space rock didn't come to light until 2012, when an amateur astronomer named Henk Nieuwenhuis came across it in the collections of a "Mrs. L. Kiers," according to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a museum in Leiden, Netherlands, which now has custody of the meteorite. Nieuwenhuis immediately realized that the rock, kept in a little wooden box, was from space. He could also tell that it was a rare carbonaceous chondrite, a subclass of meteorites that makes up less than 5 percent of all meteorites ever found. [Space-y Tales: The 5 Strangest Meteorites]

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Carbonaceous chondrites are special because they're very primitive. They contain unmelted pieces of the original ingredients of the solar system, formed from the cloud of dust and gas that eventually congealed into planets, moons and asteroids. In the early, chaotic days of the solar system, carbonaceous chondrites raining down on Earth may have brought with them elements such as hydrogen and nitrogen, and even organic material, scientists say. These ingredients were crucial for life's development on Earth.

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.