Dog kennel hit by meteor could fetch up to $420,000 at auction

A doghouse that belonged to a German Shepherd named Roky could sell for the price of a Brisbane apartment thanks to one truly out-of-this-world feature.

The humble wood and tin structure that housed the very good boy is estimated to fetch between a whopping $280,000 and $420,000 (US$2-$300,000) at Christie’s “Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites.”

You see, in 2019 a meteorite ripped through the sky, hurtling through the rainforest of north central Costa Rica and the city of Aguas Zarcas, tearing straight through Roky’s roof – with the pooch still inside.

“On April 23, 2019 at 9:07 pm, a German Shephard [sic] named Roky experienced quite a fright. A meteorite, part of a shower of exotic stone meteorites loaded with organic compounds, crashed through his doghouse, barely missing him,” Christies explains.

Roky’s doghouse is now forever part of scientific literature, as that particular meteor shower is in hot demand.

“Aguas Zarcas meteorites are the same type as Murchison, among the most researched meteorites of all time,” explains Christie’s.

“These samples not only contain tens of thousands of prebiotics, including amino acids, but also pre-solar grains ranging up to twice the age of the solar system. Today, many cosmochemists throughout the world are either investigating Aguas Zarcas specimens or waiting to obtain them.”

Usually, meteorites from showers wind up landing in the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the Earth’s surface. The other fragments touch down on land, usually in remote areas. The force of impact often sees them buried deep underground.

But Roky’s meteorite took a less likely flight path.

Part of a fireball caught on camera during its descent, a fragment pierced the roof of a local house and another went right into Roky’s kennel – tearing a seven-inch hole.

Unfortunately, Christie’s explains that unlike Roky’s family, the nearby homeowner won’t benefit from any increase in value, but that objects are a completely different story.

“Although the few homes hit by falling meteorites do not become worth more when struck, that is not the case with other objects,” the site reads.

They outline how a meteorite that battered a mailbox and tore it off its post in Georgia was sold at auction in 2007 for $115,000.

But the most famous object impacted by a meteorite happened almost immediately after a teenager in Peekskill, NY bought her grandmother’s old Chevy Malibu for about $550 in 1992. The trunk of the Malibu was struck by a meteorite and one week later, she sold the car for $96,000. In 2010, it changed hands again for a cool $320,000.

Christie’s is also auctioning off the meteor responsible for de-housing the pup. The meteorite itself is expected to go for between $56-$84,000.

And Roky will forever leave a mark on the space rock.

“The front face of the meteorite is accented with a sienna-hued streak caused by the meteorite’s passage through the oxidized [sic] tin roof of Roky’s Doghouse.”

Meteorites are extremely rare and usually reach our planet from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, but some will come from Mars itself and even the moon. Although hundreds make it to Earth each year, it’s unusual that their landing is witnessed, let alone recovered.

There are currently 16 bids on the Aguas Zarcas Doghouse and 8 bids on the meteorite. The bids close February 23.