Meteorite older than the sun found in a UK driveway – Review Geek

There are two ways to obtain a meteorite. You can send a billion dollar robot to retrieve asteroid monsters, or you can wait for free at a friendly space rock land outside your door. The last option happened on February 28, when a rare meteorite from the early solar system landed in a driveway in Winchcombe, England.

Scientists call this type of meteorite “carbonaceous chondrite”

;. It is high in carbon, so it looks a lot like coal, but carbonaceous chondrite actually dates back to the beginning of our solar system and could help us understand that Earth and other planets formed. If this is comparable to other carbonaceous chondrite samples, it should also contain bits of diamond, graphite, and soft clay – a sign that the rock has come into contact with water at some point.

New footage from the #fireball tonight. Sent by Katie Parr pic.twitter.com/J4jmsM9tFj

– UK Meteor Network (@UKMeteorNetwork) February 28, 2021

Residents of Winchcombe, England, saw a fireball land on the night of Sunday 28 February before exploding in mid-air. The next day someone found the rock in their driveway, packed it up and contacted the UK Meteor Observation Network.

As noted by the Natural History Museum, the Winchcombe Meteorite is significantly larger than rocks collected by multi-billion dollar space probes. The Hayabusa2 probe returned to Earth last year with just 4.5 grams of asteroid rock, while the OSIRIS-REx probe is expected to return in 2023 with 60 grams of rock. But the Winchcombe Meteorite is 300 grams. Good things come to those who wait, I guess.

Source: Natural History Museum via Nerdist