Offical classification for Winchcombe meteorite

AMETEORITE that landed in a Gloucestershire town is now officially classified. In February this year, a piece of rock blazed through the sky and landed in Winchcombe, in the Cotswolds, baffling locals.

Around 1,000 people saw the rock come crashing down to earth and reported the incident to experts.

It is the first of its kind to be recovered from a fall in 30 years of UK history, and is as old as the solar system.

It recently moved to its new home at the National History Museum.

Now it’s had its classification formally accepted, which means it is recognised as being meteoritic in nature, and the name ‘Winchcombe’ can be officially used to describe it.

It has also been granted its own page in the international Meteoritical

Society database. The entry in the database is akin to a birth certificate. It tells the story of the fall – observed by numerous cameras and eyewitnesses – and the process of retrieval, and it includes some initial statements about Winchcombe’s chemistry.

It shows Winchcombe’s total collected mass is 548 grams and is classified as Carbonaceous chondrite (CM2) – a rare type of meteor.

Its description reads: “A bright fireball was observed blazing through the sky, travelling from approximately west to east over the UK at 21.54 on 28 February 2021.

“It was also caught on numerous dashboard and doorbell cameras.

“There were over 1,000 eyewitness accounts from across the entire UK, as well as Ireland and northern Europe, with reports of a sonic boom in the local area.”

It explains how the morning after the meteor landed, a local family – Rob Wilcock, wife Cathryn and daughter Hannah – discovered a pile

of dark stones and powder on their driveway, pictured left. They collected stones and powder which totalled 319 grams. Within days of the fall, further stones were recovered from properties in nearby Woodmancote.

On March 16, several stones and fragments were retrieved from a field near Bishops Cleeve.

The physical characteristics of the meteor have been described in the database as “dark grey-to-black stones and powder”’

They say the largest 152 gram stone is completely fusion-crusted, but split into two pieces of 49g and 103g.

All other stones are below 14g and many have a partial fusion crust that ranges from matte black to red/ brown in colour. One stone was described as having a “compost-like” smell.

Chris Jackson > Hannah Wilcock, Rob Wilcock and Cathyrn Wilcock, who discovered the Winchcombe meteorite, at the Natural History Museum in London