Who owns a rare 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite once it plunges to Earth?

Key points: Under law meteorites are the property of the state in which they are found

Under law meteorites are the property of the state in which they are found WA researchers required to hand meteorite over to South Australian Museum

WA researchers required to hand meteorite over to South Australian Museum There have been cases where meteorites have turned up on the black market

The case of a 1.8-kilogram meteorite which fell from space and buried itself into the bed of the outback's Lake Eyre has shed light on the little-known laws governing Australia's meteorite finds.

Western Australian researchers who found the space rock — which is older than planet Earth — say they are now required to hand it over to the South Australian Museum.

Professor Phil Bland, who leads the Curtin University's Desert Fireball Network, said he and his team are only too happy to have had the meteorite on loan.

"We just want to get the scientific value out of it, we don't want to kind of keep them on a mantelpiece," he said.

He said Curtin University had a collaborative relationship with the museum.

Under law, meteorites are the property of the state in which they were found.

The South Australian Museum website explains the laws of ownership for meteorites as the "property of Crown".

South Australian legislation designates that all meteorites found in the state to be the property of the Crown and any finds must be lodged with the museum's collections.

Professor Bland found the meteorite at Lake Eyre in late December after detecting its descent to Earth about a month earlier.

The meteorite, which would have originally weighed about 80 kilograms before it disintegrated, is now under the microscope in Western Australia.

"We've got it here, we did some analysis with colleagues at CSIRO, who just did a CT scan of it so we can get the shape," he said.

Professor Bland said Australia had strict rules about meteorite ownership.

"They are the property of the state ... if researchers want to look at them they have it kind of on a loan," he said.

Dr Ben Grguric, the head of Earth Sciences from the South Australian Museum which will soon become the meteorite's final resting place, said meteorite laws were important.

"The main reason why the [Museum Act] was put in place was that [meteorites] are rare and they are scientifically very interesting," Dr Grguric said.

Sorry, this video has expired Ancient meteorite found at Lake Eyre ( Laura Gartry )

The meteorite black market

While this meteorite exchange is a friendly one, between the museum in South Australia and researchers in WA, Dr Grguric said there were cases where the museum had to intervene when amateur astronomers tried to sell meteorites on the black market.

"Things have appeared … on websites or Ebay," he said.

Dr Grguric said those people had to be notified that what they were selling was "the property of the Crown".

Professor Bland said he suspects there are amateur astronomers who are frustrated by legislation requiring them to hand back their discoveries from outer space.

"I guess if you're some of those folks then it would be a bit frustrating to have to deal with laws of that country, laws of the land, laws of the states."

Professor Bland said he and his team are only too happy to have the meteorite on loan.

"We just want to get the scientific value out of it, we don't want to kind of keep them on a mantelpiece," he said.