Winchcombe Meteor Identified, Solar System Object From 4.6 Billion Years Ago

JAKARTA - The rocky material that fell to Earth in the form of a fireball over the town of Winchcombe in the Cotswolds in February has been officially classified. According to British scientists, the object originated in the early Solar System, about 4.6 billion years ago.

As per the formal classification, it is concluded that the dark gray-to-black material taken in Gloucestershire earlier this year is currently actually recognized as a meteorite in nature. The term "Winchcombe" is used to describe it.

These Meteors consist mostly of phyllosilicates, or clay. H2O is bound in the mineral. The theory is that an asteroid bombardment of a parent meteorite like Winchcombe could have produced much of the H20 we now see in our oceans.

The researchers, led by London's Natural History Museum (NHM), said the meteorite, which consisted of 548 grams of small rocks and powder, was a member of the carbonaceous chondrite CM2.

The meteorite, said to be "Mighei-like", is a reference to specimens of a certain type, or standard, of meteorites found in Ukraine in the late 19th century.

"Carbon chondrites are probably the oldest and most primitive extra-terrestrial material we have studied," said Dr Ashley King of the NHM, as quoted by the BBC.

"They came from asteroids that reformed at the beginning of our Solar System. They are like time capsules. They tell us about the building blocks of our Solar System. Obviously, we weren't there 4.6 billion years ago, and these meteorites are the way to go. for us to really see what kinds of materials were there, and how those materials started to come together to make planets," said King.