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.

The significance of this particular meteorite strike, aside from its direct hit on the car's trunk, is that it is only the fourth instance for which accurate data on a meteorite's trajectory was recovered. In this case, dark flight began at an altitude of approximately 30 kilometers, and velocity dropped to about 3 kilometers per second without further vaporization.

This incident entered the scientific annals as the Peekskill meteor.

As for the Malibu, well, it was totaled. But the wreck, rather than being hauled off to a junkyard, began a new life as a curiosity, touring the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland and Japan. No word on what Ms. Knapp's insurance company had to say, but it probably wasn't encouraging.

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This video of the Peekskill Meteorite was taken from a Burger King parking lot in Fairfax, Virginia. For more, visit wired.com/video. (Video: Courtesy of the University of Western Ontario)

(Source: Various)