WASHINGTON • A small meteorite that crashed through the roof of a medical office in Virginia last year is becoming part of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History in Washington.

The Smithsonian paid $10,000 for the meteorite to Marc Gallini and Frank Ciampi, two doctors who operate a family practice in the building in Lorton, Va., where the meteorite landed. The space rock, which weighs about half a pound, drilled a hole through the roof as it fell.

Gallini and Ciampi have in turn given the $10,000 check to the charity Doctors Without Borders.

Museum spokesman Randall Kremer said Saturday that the meteorite was part of the museum's research collection.

The Smithsonian holds the world's largest collection of natural history specimens and artifacts.

Meteorites are lucrative, and after the tennis-ball-sized rock fell from the sky and landed in an examination room in the office in January 2010, the landlords at the doctors' building made a legal claim to it.

That claim was later dropped.