Winchcombe
The 2021 fireball filmed across Britain that delivered the UK's first carbonaceous chondrite – onto a family's driveway.
Key facts
- Type
- Carbonaceous chondrite (CM2)
- Fell or found
- Fell (witnessed and filmed)
- Year
- 2021 (28 February)
- Country
- United Kingdom (England)
- Mass
- about 0.6 kg recovered
- Official name
- Winchcombe
At about 9.54 on the evening of 28 February 2021, a brilliant fireball blazed across the skies of Britain for about six seconds. Thousands of people saw it, and it was captured by many cameras, including dedicated meteor cameras run by amateur and professional astronomers working together as the UK Fireball Alliance, as well as by home doorbell cameras. Within hours, scientists were using the footage to work out its path. Their calculations pointed to the area around Winchcombe, a small town in Gloucestershire.
A mystery on the driveway
That night, a family in Winchcombe heard a rattling sound outside. The next morning they found a scattering of black, crumbly fragments and powder on their driveway. Having seen news of the fireball, they reported the find, and specialists from the Natural History Museum in London collected the material. It weighed about 300 grams, and because it had been picked up within about 12 hours of landing, it was remarkably fresh.
A search team of scientists and volunteers then combed the fields around the town, with the landowners' permission. Several days later, one of the searchers found a stone of about 150 grams lying in a farmer's field, sitting in a small hole it had made on landing. In all, about 600 grams of meteorite were recovered.
Firsts for Britain
Winchcombe was the first meteorite fall recovered in the United Kingdom since 1991, and the first carbonaceous chondrite ever found in the UK. Carbonaceous chondrites are rare, crumbly stony meteorites rich in carbon, water-bearing minerals and organic compounds. Winchcombe belongs to the CM group, the same family as the famous Murchison meteorite. Its parent asteroid was once soaked in liquid water, which reacted with the rock to form clay minerals. Under the microscope it turned out to be a breccia, a rock made of fragments stuck together, and different fragments had been altered by water to different degrees, a sign that its parent asteroid was battered by collisions. Researchers also found a wide range of organic compounds, including amino acids.
Pristine science
Most carbonaceous chondrites are picked up days, months or even years after they fall, by which time water vapour, oxygen and contamination from Earth have begun to alter them. Winchcombe, collected within hours and quickly stored in clean conditions, ranks among the least contaminated meteorites of its kind ever studied. Scientists could compare it with samples brought back from asteroids by spacecraft.
Because the fireball was filmed from several places, researchers also reconstructed its orbit. It came from the outer part of the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Studies of its water found that the ratio of normal hydrogen to its heavier form, deuterium, was similar to that in Earth's oceans. This supports the idea that asteroids like Winchcombe's parent helped deliver water to the young Earth.
Why it matters
Winchcombe showed what can be achieved when camera networks, scientists and the public work together. Many of the first sightings came from ordinary people who saw the fireball from their gardens, cars and windows and reported it. It demonstrated the value of reporting fireballs and unusual finds quickly, and of letting experts collect fresh material carefully. Pieces are now held by the Natural History Museum in London, and the town's own museum has displayed a fragment of its famous visitor.
If you ever think you have found a fresh meteorite, avoid handling it with bare hands, put it in a clean bag or foil, note exactly where it was found, and contact a museum or university. Always search only with the landowner's permission, and never try to break, taste or heat a suspected meteorite.
Did you know?
The fireball was recorded by meteor cameras and by ordinary household doorbell cameras.
Winchcombe was the first carbonaceous chondrite ever recovered in the United Kingdom.
The driveway fragments were collected within about 12 hours, making them exceptionally pristine.