Back To It

It was then his focus shifted to his meteorite. He remembered, “I said, ‘Wait a minute. I wonder how much mine is worth.’” He contacted his friend who had acquired expertise in Geology at CMU. His friend asked him to get in touch with Mona Sirbescu, who was a faculty member in the College of Science and Engineering.

 No Expectations

Whereas Mazurek was excited to meet Sirbescu, she did not hold the same feeling. Sirbescu had no high hopes from this meeting but still, she decided to give it a shot. The woman was associated with CMU for two decades. And throughout her association, she had come across plenty of cases in which the owner of rock would claim it to be a meteorite and which often ends up being an ordinary rock. She assumed this case to be the same.

Examining It

She said, “For 18 years, the answer has been categorical. ‘No.’” She had no intention to check this rock too but she had to as the request was made by one of her friends. Mazurek reached the place the very next day.    

There It Was

Sirbescu asked him to show her the rock. He took out the rock from his bag and placed that on the table before her. She looked at the rock with her mouth agape. She picked the rock and started inspecting it through her eyes.

Special

They “could tell right away that this was something special.” Her eyes were gleaming. She had not seen a rock like this before. It was just a matter of time. In no time they were going to find out if the rock was holding any special value or not.      

A Mixture

Sirbescu ran a test on the rock and after using X-ray fluorescence equipment on it she found that the object was a mixture of 88 percent iron and 12 percent nickel. Though there are meteorites comprising of iron, nickel is a rare metal on earth. However, the metal is not uncommon in iron meteorites. There was no doubt that Mazurek had a unique and amazing piece in his possession.