A few months ago a meteorite was seen falling over the town of Winchcombe in the United Kingdom. Multiple videos of the meteor burning in the atmosphere were recorded thanks to the cameras of the UK Fireball Network and this led to finding actual fragments of the space rock. And it turns out, as the immediate observations suggested, that this was a very special find.
The Winchcombe meteorite has now been officially classified as a member of the CM ( Mighei-like ) group of carbonaceous chondrites meteorites with the approval of the Meteoritical Society. There are only 15 other known CM falls and just over 400 recorded finds. There are over 65,000 meteorites on record.
A 4.5 billion year-old fragment of debris that hurtled to Earth from the outer reaches of our solar system has gone on display at the Natural History Museum, London.
Called the Winchcombe Meteorite after the small English market town it crash-landed in in February, scientists say this type of meteorite is incredibly rare.
Footage of its arrival on February 28 was captured by Richard Fleet from the UK Meteor Observation Network before landing on driveway of Hannah Wilcock in Winchcombe. It was peak lockdown, so I wasn t really doing anything that evening, funnily enough, Wilcock told reporters. And I heard something shatter outside. I had my window open, as I often do of an evening, and lo and behold, if it wasn t a meteorite.
Meteorito de Winchcombe exibido no Museu de História Natural euronews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from euronews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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media captionFamily who found fragments of Winchcombe meteorite visit Natural History Museum display
From Monday, you ll get a chance to see the most famous space rock in Britain.
The meteorite that fell on the Gloucestershire town of Winchcombe in February is going on public display at London s Natural History Museum.
Scientists are busy studying the rock because it holds within it chemistry that existed at the formation of our Solar System 4.6 billion years ago.
But they ve got enough material to enable a 100g chunk to also be shown off to museum visitors.
To the uninitiated, the display meteorite looks like a small piece of half-burnt coal. Lean in close, though, and you can see some strands of grass and even some mud. This is something that fell out of the sky into a field.