Speaking of Stuff Falling From the Sky

Posted by admin in DC Life on 01 31st, 2010 | no responses

So in one of those freak occurrences involving a meteorite striking a doctor’s office in Lorton, Virginia, a meteorite struck a doctor’s office in Lorton — and then things got weird. Cool and collected doctors Marc Gallini and Frank Ciampi, having nearly been struck by bits of space rock falling from the universe, decided to donate this chunk of ancient sky to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — thinking that they would in turn give the Smithsonian’s $5,000 prize for the rock to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. After the fireball came crashing through the roof of their Williamsburg Square Family Practice offices, the doctors might have easily worshiped it, crafted into a ring to undermine a local DMV superhero, pitched a show about an ER in space to the CW, or at the very least basked in the meteorite’s warm radioactive glow. Instead, the doctors decided to donate the meteorite for the sake of those recently made much worse off by an unpredictable natural calamity. However, the Washington Post reports that the building’s landlords, Deniz Mutlu and Erol Mutlu, have other plans in mind. It’s easy to understand why, in one simple sense: One space nerd told the

Post that “the circumstances make it a real collectible,” estimating that this bit of space-stuff could fetch $50,000 on the open market, easy. Perhaps the landlords feel that the Smithsonian, which is chock-full of chondrite chunks — 14,738 of them, in fact, or about half of the planet’s collection of meteorites — has plenty enough meteor material as it stands. Or maybe they hate helping Haiti! Or maybe the Mutlu brothers would rather see this chance occurrence that no one earned result in a much, much bigger donation to Haiti. It would be wrong to use money falling from the sky for any other reason, right? Only Lex Luthor (who, in certain continuities, makes his fortune in real estate, and in any case definitely takes more than an amateur interest in meteorotics) would suggest otherwise. No judgment or anything, Deniz Mutlu and Erol Mutlu. Well-documented meteorites like the Lorton rock deserve the kind of scientific inspection that the Smithsonian can provide, particularly just after they’ve fallen into the atmosphere. But failing that, the hope remains that this winning space lottery ticket isn’t cashed in for self-serving purposes.