Mar 02 (NHK) - A stone that a man stumbled across near his home in central Japan has turned out to be a meteorite believed to date back 4.6 billion years.
It is the first meteorite identified in Japan in 15 years.
Six years ago, Katsuyuki Mitsumura was harvesting vegetables at a field near his house in the city of Gifu, when he found a strange stone that was black and gleaming.
The man brought the stone back home and put it at the entrance to the house as an ornament.
Last June, the 74-year-old company employee happened to read a newspaper article on meteorites that rained down on the region about one century ago.
This prompted him to take his stone to a local university for analysis.
The probe into the stone ended up involving other research institutions, including the University of Tokyo and the National Institute of Polar Research.
Researchers found that the stone, weighing about 6.5 kilograms, is an iron meteorite.
They said that iron makes up 93 percent of the stone, and it has relatively low nickel content, making it the first of its kind to be confirmed in Japan.
