The Winchcombe meteorite is a

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...

that was observed entering the Earth's atmosphere as a fireball over

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

at 21:54 hours on 28 February 2021. Due to a public appeal, fragments were quickly recovered from the village of

Winchcombe Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, it is 6 miles north-east of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 census and estimated at 5,347 in ...

enabling it to be collected for analysis before becoming degraded. It is a 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite originating from the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

between

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

and

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

. It was the first meteorite found in Britain since 1991. Fragments of the meterorite were displayed at the London Natural History Museum on 17 May 2021.

Observation

Images of the luminous

meteoroid A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...

were captured by six camera networks of the UK Fireball Alliance, which is led by the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

, as well as on the doorbell cameras of private dwellings. There were also over 1,000 eyewitness reports from the UK and elsewhere in Northern Europe, as well as a

sonic boom A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to t ...

heard in the local area. These observations allowed its trajectory to be reconstructed. A public appeal was issued for fragments.

Recovery

Subsequently a family found a pile of dark stones and powder on the driveway of their home in

. They had heard a sound at the time when the meteorite hit but did not investigate outside until the morning; upon discovering the fragments, they placed them in a bag and these were taken to London for analysis. In total of material was collected from their driveway and lawn. In the following days further fragments were found nearby, including the largest single stone from the meteorite found on farmland and weighing , but this split in two during recovery. On 21 March, meteorite hunter Chris Casey found a half stone on a grass verge in Woodmancote. This was followed by another find of on 23 March in Bishop’s Cleeve. On 25 March, Chris Casey and Luther Jackson found a stone in Bishop’s Cleeve and on 1 April, Luther Jackson, while hunting with Chris Casey and Graham Ensor, found a fragmented stone on a Bishops Cleeve footpath. The total amount recovered stands at , comprising hundreds of pieces. On 8 September 2021 local construction company Grimshaw Group removed the indented section of

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

driveway where the meteorite landed and delivered the of material to London's Natural History Museum. Pieces of the Winchcombe Meteorite are now part of a display in the Winchcombe Museum, which tells the story of its origins, unexpected arrival and its scientific significance.

Composition and classification

The meteorite is thought to be a

carbonaceous chondrite Carbonaceous chondrites or C chondrites are a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least 8 known groups and many ungrouped meteorites. They include some of the most primitive known meteorites. The C chondrites represent only a small prop ...

, the first collected on impact in Britain. The fragment did not experience rainfall and was placed in a protected environment within 12 hours of falling to Earth, meaning that the quality of the sample is comparable to those retrieved by probes from

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

sDr Luke Daly of UK Fireball Alliance: talk to the Royal Geographical Society, 11 March 2021. and offers a "near-pristine record of the composition of primitive asteroids." It is of a similar type to that retrieved by the ''

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the ''Hayabusa'' mission, which returned asteroid samples for the first time in June 2010. ''Hayabusa2'' was launched on 3 December 2 ...

'' mission from the asteroid

162173 Ryugu 162173 Ryugu, provisional designation , is a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group. It measures approximately in diameter and is a dark object of the rare spectral type Cb, with qualities of both a C-type ...

References

External links

{{2021 in space 2021 in England Chondrite meteorites Meteorite falls Meteorites found in the United Kingdom History of Gloucestershire