Utah: Meteor shoots across the sky over Snowbasin
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A meteorite reportedly containing water from outside the Blue Planet, which is said to closely resemble the Earth’s oceans, was been found in the Cotswolds. The space rock plunged into a driveway in Gloucestershire last year, but a year on, scientists have confirmed that the chunk of extra-terrestrial rock contains vast amounts of water which closely match the liquid found on Earth in a world-first.
Experts argue this could hold important clues as to how Earth’s oceans originally formed. With up to 12 percent of the sample containing water, the rock also contained amino acids, which are one of the key building blocks of life.
Dr Ashley King, a researcher from the Planetary Materials Group, told the British Science Festival: “We can be really confident when we measure the water that it is extra-terrestrial water. The composition of that water is very very similar to the composition of the water in the Earth’s oceans.
“So it’s a really good piece of evidence that asteroids and bodies like Winchcombe were delivering really important contributions to the Earth’s oceans.
“It’s also got two per cent carbon, and a significant fraction of that is organic materials, like amino acids. If you want to start making DNA and stuff, you need amino acids, so all of these starting materials are locked up in the Winchcombe meteorite.”
The meteorite was reportedly retrieved incredibly quickly, just 12 hours after crashing down on Earth, which meant the rock was not contaminated by water and materials. The 0.5kg rock marks the first time that a space rock, while covered in minerals, fell to Earth containing extra-terrestrial water without being contaminated.
Dr King said: “We always try and match the composition of the water meteorites and other extra-terrestrial materials to the composition of the water on the Earth.
“For most meteorites, the challenge we have is that they are just contaminated, whereas with Winchcombe we really know that it really hasn’t been contaminated, so it’s good evidence.
“One of the big questions we have in planetary sciences is where did the water on Earth come from? And one of the obvious places is either through comets that have loads and loads of ice in them, or asteroids. There’s always a debate – were comets the main source, were asteroids the main source?’
He added that the fact that the space rock contains two pecent carbon, with a “significant fraction” of that being organic materials such as amino acids.
Dr King added: “If you want to start making DNA and stuff, you need amino acids, so all of these starting materials are locked up in the Winchcombe meteorite.”
He later said: “The composition of water on comets, at least a few that we visited, doesn’t really match the Earth’s oceans, but the composition of the water in the Winchcombe meteorite is a much better match. So that would imply that carbonaceous asteroids were probably the main source of water for Earth.”
The meteorite is thought to have formed around 4.6 billion years ago, taking around 300,000 years to crash down to Earth. It is thought that the chunk was part of the leftover planet-building material of the early Solar System, but got knocked off and was sent flying towards our planet.
While the uncontaminated space rock represents a major landmark for understanding the formation of Earth’s oceans, it is far from the first time a meteorite has crashed down to our planet, with around 65,000 known meteorites believed to have been found.
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However, researchers say the Winchcombe space rock is the first-known carbonaceous chondrite metiorite to have crash landed on British soil, which was reportedly sent darting into Earth’s orbt at a speed of approximately 31,000 mph.
The family who found the rock originally did not want to be named. They were later revealed to be the Wilcock family, including father Rob, his wife Cathryn and his daughter Hannah.
The discovery also comes as a historic space rock flew through the sky last on Thursday night this week, which experts are hoping will be found in Queen Elizabeth Forest Park so it can be named after Her Majesty.
Onlookers spotted a mysterious streak of light that is thought to be the first meteorite over Scotland in more than a century. According to scientists, it could either be burning space debris or a meteorite. However, experts have said that it did not closely resemble either due to the way it fragmented.
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