The meteorite arrived on Earth from the outer asteroid belt closer to Jupiter. According to scientists, it represents “a part of the solar system that has not changed since preplanetary time.”
Almost a 300-gram piece of a meteorite that fell to Earth on the night of March 1 was found in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England. This was announced on March 9 by Space.
According to experts, this is the first meteorite particle found in the UK since 1991. The 300-gram space stone is formed from carbonaceous Chondrite, a material that has retained its unchanged composition since the formation of our solar system.
“There are about 65,000 known meteorites around the world, and only 51 of them are carbonaceous chondrites that fell to Earth like this one,” she said. Professor Sarah Russell of the Natural History Museum.
Online published videos of a meteor flying in the skies over Britain on the night of Sunday to Monday, March 1.
Details about the rare find lead BBC News.
Since thousands of people watched the meteorite fall and, in addition, its flight was recorded by special video surveillance cameras operated by the British Fireball Alliance, scientists were able to calculate its orbit and determine the likely area of falling debris.
He came to Earth from the outer asteroid belt, located closer to Jupiter.
“In fact, this is part of the solar system, 4.5 billion years old, which went through a deep freeze. The meteorite had no chance at all to change from preplanetary time. Its analysis will give us an idea of what our solar system was like before there there were planets, “Russell said.
The search area was designated “north of Cheltenham, towards Stow-on-the-Wold.” The BBC notes that these are not very accurate coordinates, but the researchers are in luck. Part of the meteorite fell on a well-cleared path in front of the house of a Winchcombe resident, and was found on March 1.
A search party was immediately dispatched to the area where the first fragment was found to comb the area in search of new fragments. With the help of local residents, they managed to collect about 400 grams of material, which were transferred to the London Museum of Natural History and to scientists.
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