ARE you looking for an out of this world way to make some extra dough? Well look no further than the rocking world of meteorite hunting.

‘Slightly crazy’ meteorite hunters are growing in numbers and gusto, with some even ready to risk jail for a big find.

And when you discover the value of some this space junk, you may find yourself heading for the hills too.

But what exactly is the allure of these ancient space rocks, and (much) more importantly, exactly how much cash can you make?

Incredibly the most valuable meteorite ever sold went for an eye-watering £1.5million. The Fukang Meteorite (I think we spelled that correctly) is a pallasite made of nickel-iron laced with crystals and is believed to be over 4.5billion years old.

While the rewards are high, you could come crashing down as drastically as anything you might find and end up banged up abroad. Which is exactly what happened to Michael Farmer when he went on the hunt in Oman.

“I went on my 20th meteorite hunting expedition in Oman with my fellow hunter Robert Ward. I have studied the law there since the arrest of Russian and American hunters back in 2005 and I understand the practice to be legal,” Farmer told the New Scientist.

“I found 35 meteorites, including three more pieces of the Dhofar 1180 Lunar, which I’d originally found in 2005, and other nice things. On the last day we headed towards Dubai. At 1pm on 13 January we arrived at a roadblock in the town of Adam.

“There was nothing out of the ordinary, until the police rushed my car with M16 rifles. They were nice and did not seem to know why we were being arrested but they forced us out of our cars and ripped them apart, finding the meteorites.

“We were taken to the police station and interrogated for 10 hours. They had intelligence that we were coming.

“We were driven to Muscat, the capital of Oman, in shackles.

“There we were stripped, put into separate rooms, about 9 by 9 by 12 feet, with a small pad on the floor and two blankets. The rooms were horribly filthy, crawling with roaches.”

Farmer was eventually sentenced to six months in prison and a £200 fine for illegal mining operations.

Hunters have even claimed that some of these rocks are of alien original and are from outside of our solar system.

Early this year Professor Avi Loeb announced his incredible find

“Wonderful news! For the first time in history, scientists analyzed materials from a meter-size object that originated from outside the solar system. The object lit up the sky over the Pacific Ocean nearly a decade ago and its bright fireball was tracked by US government satellites.”

But how do the hunters find their prey?

Meteorite hunting is likened to a race, where being the first to locate a fallen meteorite is often the winner.

The hunters are often alerted from organisations like the American Meteor Society to sightings or potential meteorite falls.

Then they might quickly book a flight to the location of the reported event.

Once on-site, hunters use a simple yet very effective tool, a magnet on a stick, to test the rocks. Most meteorites contain iron which sticks to magnets.

Another key characteristic to look for is a black outer shell.

Hunters walk the terrain, using a powerful magnet to interact with the rocks in the vicinity. The magnet is a crucial tool, as it helps distinguish meteorites from ordinary rocks.  Annoyingly though, some of the most expensive meteorites don’t stick to magnets so old-fashioned intuition takes over.

And the desire to find that giant crystally lump of stone that could send your bank balance into orbit.