11,800-pound meteorite withstands a devastating fire at Brazil's National Museum

[NelsonG]

The hefty metal Bendegó meteorite still sits unscathed inside the charred entrance to Brazil's palatial National Museum, after flames spread through the 200-year-old halls Sunday night.

The iron-and-nickel space rock, weighing in at some 11,800 pounds (5.36 metric tons), withstood flames that ravaged nearly all the ancient paintings, bones, and collections housed inside the main three-story structure, the museum's deputy director Cristiana Serejo told Brazil's news organization G1 on Monday.

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Serejo estimated that perhaps 10 percent of the museum's collections survived, though fire investigators will scour the museum to discover exactly what ancient artifacts remain. The museum held mummies, dinosaur fossils, and a wealth of prehistoric Brazilian history. Read more...

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