Meteorite that fell in the UK sells for £22,000 at auction

In total, 602g of Winchombe meteorite were recovered. This sale fragment is 15g

Last year, pieces of rock fell from space on to people's driveways in the Cotswold town of Winchcombe.

It was the first time in 30 years a meteorite had landed in the UK, and is thought by scientists to be the most important meteorite ever found in the country.

Now, a small 15g piece has been sold at auction, and it was bought for $30,340 (roughly £22,304).

Christie's, a famous auction house, has just had its annual sale of rare and unusual meteorites.

Called Deep Impact, this event has been running every year since 2014, and this year some of their biggest ever bits of space rock were up for sale.

Like this huge bit of a Martian meteorite, which weighs 9kg and was expected to sell for more than half a million dollars (or around £370,000), although no one ended up buying it.

NWA 12690 is the third largest piece of Mars on Earth

It's called NWA 12690 and it was found in Mali (which is in northwest Africa). It was blasted off the Red Planet by a big asteroid, before hurtling through space towards Earth.

There was also had a chunk of the Moon on sale which received the highest bid of the event, selling for a whopping $189,000 (£139,415).

Top dog at the auction

One of the pieces that lots of people were excited about was - wait for it - a dog kennel!

Why? Because in 2019, a meteorite fell on top of it and blasted a hole through its tin roof.

It belonged to Roky the German shepherd in Costa Rica, who was fortunately completely unharmed after the impact!

Roky the German Shepherd came to no harm

The kennel was estimated to sell for around $200,000 (around £147,315), which was more money than expected for the meteorite that caused the damage.

"To value all the items in the auction, I work to the four S's - size, shape, science and story," explained James Hyslop, head of the science and natural history department at Christie's.

The story of Roky's kennel played a huge part in its estimated value, he said.

However, it actually sold for much less than expected - $44,100 (around £32,483). The meteorite that broke it went for $21,420 (roughly £15,800).