Meteorite ‘broken up then rebuilt on its long journey through space’
A METEORITE that landed in a field three years ago was smashed apart and rebuilt over and over again on its brutal journey through space, scientists have said.
Latest analysis of the space rock named after Winchcombe – the Gloucestershire town where it was found – also suggests water may have played a role in its violent odyssey that lasted millions of years.
Researchers said that in its early days the meteorite was an ice-bearing dry rock but over millions of years ice melted into a ball of mud which was repeatedly broken apart and reassembled.
Findings suggest it formed from chunks of other rocks cemented together – like broken pieces from multiple jigsaws mashed together – in what is known as breccia.
Dr Luke Daly, of the University of Glasgow, who led the research, said: “We were fascinated to uncover just how fragmented the breccia was within the Winchcombe sample we analysed.
“If you imagine the Winchcombe meteorite as a jigsaw, what we saw in the analysis was as if each of the jigsaw pieces themselves had also been cut into smaller pieces and then jumbled in a bag filled with fragments of seven other jigsaws.
“However, what we’ve uncovered in trying to unjumble the jigsaws is new insight into the very fine detail of how the rock was altered by water in space.
“It also gives us a clearer idea of how it must have been battered by impacts and reformed again and again over the course of its lifetime since it swirled together out of the solar nebula (a giant interstellar cloud that gave birth to the Solar System), billions of years ago.”
The Winchcombe meteorite is the first to be found on UK soil for 30 years. The first rock was discovered on a driveway in February 2021 after it was spotted as a fireball streaking across the skies.
This specimen was recovered just hours after it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
More fragments were found in a sheep field a few days later. The meteorite belongs to class of rocks known as carbonaceous chondrites.
They comprise about three per cent of all meteorites collected on Earth and are thought to contain unaltered chemicals from the formation of the Solar System.