Maria Elizabeth Zucolotto polishes a nearly 12,000-pound meteorite at the National Museum of Brazil.

Shutterstock.com (background); DADO GALDIERI/The New York Times/Redux (Maria Elizabeth Zucolotto)

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It Came From Outer Space

Meteorites are space rocks that reach Earth’s surface. Who gets to keep them depends on where they land.

November 17, 2025
By Cailin Loesch

As You Read, Think About: What should happen to meteorites that people find?

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

The mysterious object roared like a plane as it tore across the sky. It landed near Adriano Gomes’s home in a village in Brazil called Jacilândia. He told reporters that, at first, he was afraid to touch what looked like an ordinary rock.

Gomes soon found out that the rock was a meteorite that had fallen from space. Collectors from distant cities offered to buy it from Gomes, hoping to own a rare piece of space. But three years after he found the rock, Gomes still hadn’t decided what to do with it.

In May, an all-female team of scientists called As Meteoríticas contacted him. They wanted to get their hands on the meteorite so they could study it. 

“Each meteorite is a piece of a puzzle that teaches us the history of our solar system,” says Maria Elizabeth Zucolotto. She’s a geologist and a member of As Meteoríticas. 

What would Gomes do with his once-in-a-lifetime find?

Rock Stars

DADO GALDIERI/The New York Times/Redux

Most meteorites are pieces of asteroids, large space rocks that were left over from the formation of the solar system. Some meteorites broke off from the moon or Mars (see “Mars on Earth”). Any space rock that reaches Earth’s surface without burning up in the atmosphere is considered a meteorite. 

More than 70,000 meteorites have been found around the world, including about 2,000 in the U.S. In June, a meteorite that ripped through the roof of a house in McDonough, Georgia, became national news. It’s a chondrite, one of the oldest types of space rocks. That meteorite is more than 4.5 billion years old. 

The space rock that Gomes found is also a chondrite. And it wasn’t the first meteorite to land in Brazil. In 2020, more than 175 pounds of meteorites rained down on a city called Santa Filomena. For weeks, residents searched the area for space rocks. Some ended up selling the meteorites they found to private collectors for thousands of dollars.

Zucolotto is also a curator at the National Museum of Brazil. She worries that when meteorites are sold to collectors, scientists won’t get to study them. And the public may never get the chance to see them up close in museums.

“When you hold a meteorite, it’s like you can touch space,” Zucolotto says. “It’s different than seeing it in a book.” 

Finders Keepers?

Who gets to keep a meteorite? The answer depends on where it’s found. In the U.S., a meteorite that falls on a person’s property is theirs to keep—or sell or give away. For example, fragments of the McDonough Meteorite, as it’s now called, were donated to the University of Georgia to be studied. 

But if a meteorite falls on public land—like a state park or a national forest—it can be claimed by the Smithsonian Institution, a group of museums run by the U.S. government. In places like Canada and Mexico, meteorites can’t be removed from the country without the government’s permission.

Brazil has no clear rules about meteorites, but scientists and lawmakers are discussing a possible new law. It would protect meteorites for research without forcing people who find them to give up their discovery.

“They’d need to give just a small piece of the meteorite to science,” Zucolotto explains. “They can do whatever they want with the rest of it.” 

Gomes decided to sell his meteorite to As Meteoríticas for about $900. Zucolotto’s team continues to travel around Brazil in search of other space rocks. 

“To find a meteorite is like a star falling into your hands,” Zucolotto says. “It’s magic.”

Mars on Earth

The biggest known meteorite from Mars was found in Niger, a country in West Africa, in 2023. The 54-pound rock had broken off the Red Planet after an asteroid strike. It traveled about 140 million miles through space before landing on Earth. It was discovered by a meteorite hunter.

Last July, the Martian meteorite was sold in New York City for $5.3 million. The sale sparked a debate. Niger’s government argues that the space rock shouldn’t have been taken out of the country. But Sotheby’s, the auction house that sold the meteorite, says the sale was legal.

Richard Drew/AP Photo

1. According to Maria Elizabeth Zucolotto, what are some disadvantages of allowing collectors to buy meteorites?

2. What does the article mean when it says that who owns a meteorite depends on where the rock is found?

3. What is the main purpose of the sidebar, “Mars on Earth”?

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