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Science & Nature
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The Cosmic Fender Bender: How a 1980 Chevy Malibu Became the Most Famous Car Hit by a Meteorite
On October 9, 1992, a 12.57 kg meteorite blazed across the Eastern US, ending its 4.4-billion-year journey by smashing into the trunk of 17-year-old Michelle Knapp's 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, NY. The cosmic collision turned her $300 car into a priceless astronomical artifact.
For most 17-year-olds, the biggest threat to their first car is a stray shopping cart or a parallel parking mishap. For Michelle Knapp, a high school senior in Peekskill, New York, the threat was literally out of this world. On the quiet Friday night of October 9, 1992, while watching television inside her home, she was startled by an enormous crash from her driveway. Rushing outside, she discovered something unbelievable: a gaping hole in the trunk of her recently purchased 1980 red Chevrolet Malibu.
A Friday Night Light Show
What Michelle initially heard was the grand finale of a spectacular celestial event. A brilliant green fireball had just streaked across the evening sky, captivating thousands of onlookers from Kentucky to New York. The event was so widely seen, especially over stadiums hosting Friday night high school football games, that it was captured on video by at least 16 different people. This collective footage made the Peekskill meteorite's descent one of the most well-documented meteorite falls in history.
I heard a loud crash, and it sounded like a three-car crash, a really loud crash.
That was how Knapp later described the sound to reporters. Her first thought wasn't of an interstellar visitor, but of a car accident or even vandalism. It was only when she investigated further that she found the culprit nestled beneath her car.
The Cosmic Culprit
Lying on the ground under the demolished rear end of the Malibu was a 27.7-pound (12.57 kg) rock. It was still warm to the touch and smelled faintly of sulfur. The asphalt beneath the car was cracked from the impact. This was no ordinary rock; it was a meteorite, later classified as an H6 monomict breccia, a stony artifact that had traveled billions of miles through space. In an incredible stroke of luck, the cosmic projectile had slammed through the trunk, narrowly missing the gas tank and preventing a potentially explosive conclusion to its journey.
From Junk Car to Astronomical Artifact
Michelle had purchased the Chevy Malibu from her grandmother for about $300. After its close encounter with the space rock, its value skyrocketed. News of the cosmic car crash spread like wildfire. A meteorite collector, Iris Lang, wife of the famed collector Al Lang, purchased the battered car for $10,000. The meteorite itself was sold in pieces, with the main mass fetching an impressive $69,000. The car, no longer just a vehicle, became a traveling exhibit. It has since been displayed in museums around the world, including the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and New York's American Museum of Natural History. The Peekskill Malibu stands as a bizarre and enduring testament to the day the cosmos decided to play a game of celestial darts, with a teenager's first car as the bullseye.