How Michael Farmer made a fortune from space rocks

Michael Farmer is willing to risk foreign jails, muggings - even his own life - for small but precious fragments of the moon.

Twenty years ago, Michael Farmer bought a meteorite fragment for $75 at a minerals exhibition in Tucson, Arizona. It changed his life. "I became absolutely obsessed and hooked," he tells National Geographic, eventually becoming one of a small band of dedicated meteorite hunters who scour the globe for extra-terrestrial rocks and sell them on at profit to scientists, museums and private collectors.

"I've been around the world more times than I can count," says Farmer. It's dangerous work. He was nearly murdered in Kenya, was forced to flee across the border in Peru and, two years ago, spent three months in prison in Oman for illegal mining activity'. "Not a very nice time."

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