A piece of black stone dating from the early days of the solar system fell on a residential alley in Great Britain.
At the end of last month, a stone weighing about 300 grams (300 grams) was thrown into an alley belonging to Rob and Cathryn Wilcock, who live in the small town of Winchcombe, UK.
“When I heard it go down, I got up and looked out the window to see what was there. But because it was dark, I couldn’t see anything, “said Hannah, the couple’s daughter. said BBC. “It wasn’t until the next morning, when I went out, that I saw her on the unit – kind of like a splash. And, in all honesty, my original thought was – did anyone drive around the Cotswolds, pushing lumps of coal into people’s gardens? ”
A piece of coal is not. It’s more like a meteorite. And not just any meteorite – it’s a piece of carbonic chondrite that, estimated at 4.5 billion years old, dates back to the formation of the solar system, according to a statement from the University of Manchester.
“Almost all meteorites come to us from asteroids, the remaining elements of the solar system that can tell us how planets like Earth formed,” said Ashley King, a researcher and innovation at the UK Future Leaders Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at Natural History Museum, he said in the statement. “The possibility of being one of the first people to see and study a meteorite that was recovered almost immediately after the fall is a dream come true!”
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The rare specimen reached a fiery glory, as the rock illuminated the sky above the United Kingdom and northern Europe in February. 28, 2021. The fireball, which entered the Earth’s atmosphere with speeds reaching 14 km per second), was spotted by thousands of witnesses, many of whom reported the show British meteor observation network.
Extensive images taken by the camera from different angles allowed scientists to triangulate a landing site and recreate their flight path through the solar system, according to the University of Manchester Declaration. It is believed that other remnants of the shattered asteroid fell either the region known as the Cotswold, and continue the search for these valuable pieces.
Along with the main piece, there are other smaller fragments from the meteorite hit The road. Despite the fact that the pieces are a dusty, broken mess they are in excellent condition and are compared with clean samples returned from space missions.
“I was shocked to see it and I immediately knew it was a rare meteorite and a totally unique event,” said Richard Greenwood, a researcher at Open University, in a statement. “It’s emotional to be the first to confirm to the people in front of you that the noise they heard in their alley overnight is actually the real thing.”
Carbonic chondrites are made up of a combination of minerals and organic compounds, such as amino acids. By studying such ancient objects, scientists can turn to the early days of the solar system, allowing them to better understand the origin of the planets and water and how the basic elements of life came to Earth.
“We are absolutely delighted that something has happened that will be so valuable to science, to the human understanding of the world and the solar system, and that we can be a small part of it,” Rob Wilcock told the BBC.
The meteorite will be moved to the Natural History Museum, allowing a formal investigation of the object.
Of the tens of thousands of meteorites known on Earth, only 51 are carbonic chondrites. The February 28 meteorite is the first carbonic chondrite found in the UK, and the first meteorite sample to be recovered in the county since 1991.