Rare meteorite, a 'relic of the early solar system,' falls on a driveway in England
By Nicoletta Lanese - Staff Writer a day ago
a chunk of carbonaceous chondrite meteorite is held between a gloved finger and thumb; the meteorite resembles black coal
(Image credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum)
A meteorite found in the U.K. contains an extremely rare combination of minerals that could give scientists a glimpse into how the solar system formed and even how life emerged on Earth.
The meteorite tumbled to Earth on Feb. 28, when a dazzling fireball zoomed over southwest England, Live Science previously reported. At the time, scientists suspected that quite a few fragments of the space rock likely reached the ground. One such fragment landed on a driveway in Winchcombe, a town in Gloucestershire, according to a statement from the Natural History Museum in London.
Noticing a black, sooty splotch on their driveway, the house's occupants bagged up bits of the meteorite and quickly alerted the U.K. Meteor Observation Network, which then contacted the Natural History Museum.
"For somebody who didn't really have an idea what it actually was, the finder did a fantastic job in collecting it," Ashley King, a researcher at the museum who studies meteorites, said in the statement. "He bagged most of it up really quickly on Monday morning, perhaps less than 12 hours after the actual event. He then kept finding bits in his garden over the next few days."
More:
https://www.livescience.com/fireball-rare-meteorite-england.html
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