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Peekskill meteorite car, still a hit, heads to Paris for 25th anniversary show

PEEKSKILL, N.Y. — Twenty-five years after a meteorite tore through the trunk of a teenager’s Chevy Malibu Classic in this northern Westchester County city, the astonishingly rare event continues to anoint the car with stardust.

The 1980 Chevy will head to Paris over the next few weeks to be part of an exhibition on meteorites at France's national natural history museum — Muséum Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle — the car's current owner said.

On Oct. 9, 1992, the 26.5-pound space rock — captured by 16 cameras in several eastern states as it alighted across that Friday night sky — crashed through the back of the car owned at the time by 18-year-old Michelle Knapp, who had parked the Chevy in her driveway at 242 Wells St. She had bought the car for about $400.

CBS New York

Car Hit By Meteorite In Peekskill In 1992 Headed To Paris Museum

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A Chevrolet with a celestial connection is headed from New York to France.

As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, the car was heavily damaged 25 years ago, but it is so valuable that it is insured for $1 million. It is also so viewable that it is going on display at a museum in Paris.

Dieses Auto wurde von einem Meteoriten getroffen

Außerirdisch! Ein 12 Kilogramm schwerer Meteorit hat das Heck diesen roten Straßenkreuzer getroffen. Ein sphärischer Einschlag, der den Wagen weltweit zu einem absoluten Einzelstück gemacht hat.

Der Chevrolet Malibu von Michelle Knapp wurde 1992 bei New York von einem Meteoriten getroffen. Der etwa 12 Kilogramm schwere „Peekskill“ durchschlug das Heck des Wagens und kam selbst fast ohne Kratzer davon - nur ein roter Streifen auf dem Himmelsstein zeugte von seinem Zusammenprall.

Auto mit Meteoriteneinschlag wird in Oldenburg gezeigt

Oldenburg (dapd-nrd). A car demolished by a meteorite in New York in 1992 has been on display in Oldenburg since Wednesday. The Chevrolet Malibu is the only vehicle worldwide ever hit by a meteorite. According to a museum spokeswoman, the special exhibition "Meteorite Impact" opened at the Landesmuseum für Natur und Mensch (Museum of Natural History) opened for the duration of four weeks as a special exhibit.

Meteorite Falls on Car, Car Becomes Artwork

In 1992 in Peekskill, N.Y., a 4.4-billion-year-old, 26-pound asteroid chunk fell on a 1980 Chevy Malibu. The car soon became famous in meteorite-collecting circles (yes, they exist) and has since traveled all around the world. It will go on view tomorrow for the first time in a fine-art context, at Mark Hagen’s self-curated show at Marlborough Chelsea, “Guest Star,” a title that slyly evokes both the rock that did the damage and to Hagen’s own status in New York (the Los Angeles-based artist is unrepresented in the city).

Oct. 9, 1992: My Insurance Agent Will Never Believe This

1992: A meteorite smashes into Michelle Knapp's 1980 Chevy Malibu (parked and unoccupied, fortunately) in Peekskill, New York.

The stone meteorite, which was later determined to weigh 12.37 kilograms upon impact, was a fragment of a fiery meteor, described as flaring brighter than a full moon and strikingly visible in the night sky from West Virginia to New York. The fireball broke up and sent this particular meteorite on a southwest-to-northeast trajectory that would take it straight into Ms. Knapp's car.