The Meteor Farmer

FOR TWO WEEKS, STEVE ARNOLD TRUDGED through the dusty farmland of Kiowa County, Kansas, a 6-foot rope trailing over his shoulder. Three days later, Arnold and his partner and investor – an oil and gas attorney from San Antonio named Philip Mani – were attacking the site with a backhoe. About the size of a beer keg, the rock weighed 1,430 pounds, the largest pallasite ever found in the US. WHEN THE SOLAR SYSTEM FORMED 4.5 billion years ago, the construction debris left behind became what we now call asteroids.