What happened?
Last Monday night, some burglars seemed to be quite confused. They stole a very important meteoriet (meteorite) from the Dutch sterrenwacht (observatory) and museum Sonnenborgh, which was found in 1925. However, they did not seem to know that the brandkast (safe) they stole contained the 2-inch stone. The museum director Bas Nugteren said they were looking for money, but that they could not have found much in his building. According to him, it was an accident that they stole the stones.
Een meteoriet (Image by Pieter VanderLinden at Flickr.com)
Unfortunately, the meteorite was broken, but found back yesterday, on Friday morning. Two tennis players were looking for their tennis ball when they found the stones in de bosjes (in the bushes) in a plastic bag. They handed them over to the politie (police). On the news, Mr. Nugteren had asked the dieven (thieves) to return the stones, as they do not have any market value, but are cultural and historical items without a price. And so they did on Friday.
Meteorites in the Netherlands
Maybe you are surprised that meteorites have fallen in a small country like the Netherlands, but I can assure you: they have! In fact, many were never found. There are just too many woods where they could have landed. Five, however, were discovered. One of them is this one, the Ellemeet, found in 1925. The others:
1840 – one found close to Uden.
1843 – one found close to Utrecht.
1873 – one found close to Diepenveen.
1925 – the Ellemeet found close to Ellemeet.
1990 – Glanerburg-meteoriet found close to Glanerburg.
It is estimated that the Ellemeet is 4.6 billion years old! So it is fortunate it was found back, but a shame it is broken now… However, it is still large enough and interesting enough to be displayed in the museum. A big relief for the Netherlands!
A video about the news can be found here (hopefully it is available in your country!):
http://nos.nl/l/689522
Vocabulary on meteorites and space:
meteoriet – meteorite
de ruimte – space
het heelal – the universe
de ster – the star
sterrenwacht – observatory
donker – dark
de hemel – sky/heaven
de lucht – air/sky
vallen – to fall
vallende ster – shooting star
