Most people think of these as shooting stars and make a wish when they see them blazing a path across the sky. But for some people shooting stars have no magic until they hit the ground and become meteorites.

While many collect antiques, stamps or coins, there is a growing band of enthusiasts who collect meteorites, the pieces of asteroids or comets from outer space that land on Earth. Meteorite collecting is a comparatively new hobby in China and collectors are yet few and far between. But the report of a meteorite that fell in Russia on February 15 has encouraged some to begin pursuing the pastime.

While most meteorites land far from built-up areas and go unnoticed, this was a spectacular arrival on Earth. Australia's Sydney Morning Herald reported that more than 1,000 people were injured when the meteorite shot across the sky and exploded, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings.

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shock wave, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow. Hundreds were injured as a result of the explosion. While the meteorite's landing made headlines around the world, some Shanghai meteorite collectors immediately raced to Russia to search for fragments. 

Valuable gems

Liu Changcai, the president of the Shanghai Meteorite Enthusiasts Association, describes meteorites as "valuable gems from the outer space" and his association is a place for collectors to share experiences and knowledge. If a meteor lands in an accessible area, his association will dispatch one or two members to collect what fragments they can. He said that meteorites of the size of the Russian example were very rare and might occur only once every 100 years. Meteorites are also important for scientific research, according to Tang Haiming, the supervisor of scientific promotion at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory's Sheshan Station. Meteorites are studied to provide information about the environments of other planets and asteroids - scientists around the world have so far identified more than 100 minerals on meteorites that have been found and 24 of these minerals have never before been discovered on the Earth.

These weird rocks give collectors a sense of the universe at the least. They come from outer space and then are named after the area where they land. Currently on the Chinese market, collectors can buy meteorites from Namibia, Libya, Russia, the Czech Republic, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Suizhou in Central China's Hubei Province and Changxing Island in Shanghai.

For collectors, meteorites have a singular value and appeal - they are comparatively rare and some are quite valuable. Collectors have a complex classification system. Most meteorites are classified as stony meteorites or chondrites (depending on their makeup), and a rare 1 percent are stony-iron meteorites, constituted of iron-nickel and silicate minerals, Liu told the Global Times.

The most expensive meteorites a collector can buy are those believed to have come from the Moon and these can fetch on average 3,000 yuan ($486) per gram. The top price paid for a meteorite was $25,000 per gram. Meteorites from the Mars cost more than 1,200 yuan per gram, Liu said.

Average stony-iron meteorites are worth 60 to 1,000 yuan per gram. That spectacular meteorite in Russia was classified by Russian scientists as a simple stony type, China's Central Television reported.

This would have made it just an average meteorite, but Liu said because it was one of a rare breed of meteorites that had made a highly visible entry from space it would be more valuable, and probably worth about 1,000 yuan per gram. Meteorites that have been witnessed arriving on the Earth can be worth a hundred times the normal price.

A meteorite that fell on the Changxing Island in Shanghai in 1966 was seen by thousands and fragments are now worth 1,000 yuan per gram, Liu said. For a strange reason, meteorites that are known to have struck people, animals or buildings increase in value.

The shock wave from impact of the meteorite in Russia blew out windows in 3,700 buildings and left about 1,200 people with minor injuries. While most meteorites burn up in the atmosphere, others fall into the sea or dense forests, making them rare and valuable finds, supervisor Tang explained.

The value of meteorites also depends on their content - if they contain rare minerals or elements, they can fetch above average prices.

Most collectors keep their meteorite collections at home - real meteorites have a minimal risk of radiation, explained Zhu Jin, the curator of the Beijing Planetarium. However, fake meteorites do have a risk of containing metals that produce radiation.

Like many things, even the relatively obscure hobby of collecting meteorites has been plagued with fakes. Spurred by stories like the recent one in the UK Daily Mail, telling of a Spanish farmer's family which had used a rock to press their homemade ham for 30 years before discovering that it was, in fact, a rare meteorite and worth 33 million yuan, fake meteorites have been flooding sales outlets.

Fakes prevalent

Liu believes that most meteorites on the market are fake. Or that buyers and sellers simply do not know their proper value. But for a newcomer to the hobby, there is official assistance available. The Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences can assess meteorites for members of the public. But it also warns on its website that genuine and valuable meteorites are rare.

The observatory said 99 percent of the meteorites it examines for other people are not real. Liu said one way of telling if a meteorite was real was to know about them and how they have been created. Stony meteorites are different from Earth-formed rocks and have a dark glassy crust called a fusion crust which is produced when their surface melts, traveling through space and the atmosphere. Stony meteorites also contain silicates that cannot be found in rocks on the Earth.

Curator Zhu backed up the advice about learning about meteorites before buying. He said collecting these was a good hobby if collectors were enthusiastic and knew their subject but it would not be a good idea to try collecting meteorites as an investment. The meteorite market in China is a recent phenomenon and there are few regulations that govern the buying or selling of these.