Elmore County man Joe Champion claims he recently discovered a rare meteorite in a load of soil and rock he was sorting through.

Champion identified the find as a pallasite meteorite, which are believed to form between the silicate mantle, or outer shell, and molten metal core of a differentiated asteroid (asteroids that have been altered by thermal processes and have separated into a core and mantle), according to the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University.

These meteorites are extremely rare and can be distinguished by the presence of large olivine crystal inclusions in the ferro-nickel matrix, often with a green hue.

“Pallasites were likely created in a comparatively small zone within these differentiated asteroids, and that fact may explain their rarity,” reads an article by geologist Geoffrey Notkin.

“Out of the many thousands of identified meteorites there are only about 45 known pallasites.”

Gem-quality peridot has been identified in multiple pallasite meteorites, earning it the title of a “gemstone from another world.”

Efforts to reach Champion for comment were not immediately successful.

This is not the first time a piece of space has found its way to Alabama.

Ann Hodges, 34, was napping on her couch in Oak Grove, near Sylacauga, on Nov. 30, 1954, when she was struck in the thigh by a meteorite that had crashed through her roof and ricocheted off her radio set.

Before her death in 1972, Hodges donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama, where it is on permanent display.