A €30,000 reward was offered today to the finders of a meteorite seen blazing across the Irish skyline yesterday.
Over a hundred people reported seeing a fireball - thought to have landed in the northwest of the country - early yesterday morning.
Scottish meteorite dealer Mr Rob Elliott immediately put up a reward in return for small black particles of the rock.
"The reward is an incentive to get people out, to walk through muddy fields and spend some time actually looking for parts of the meteorite," said Mr Elliott.
There is no danger at all to anybody who picks up a meteorite".
He said his Fife-based company Fernlea Meteorites offered a similar reward in November 1999 after a similar report of a bright fireball in the skies.
"We got to hear about it a day or two after the event and we offered a reward of about €30,000 to the lucky finder," he said today.
Parts of the rock would be sold on to collectors and the remainder would be kept for scientific research.
A spokesman for Astronomy Ireland said telephone lines had been jammed since the fireball was spotted at around 7 a.m. yesterday. He said it was very likely that the fireball was a meteorite, and that it may have landed in the Donegal area.
"Meterorites can be very valuable," he said. "Rocks from Mars would be worth up to millions of euros per gram, although it is highly unlikely it was one of those".
PA