Extraterrestrial water found in meteorite for the first time
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Water was found in a British meteorite. Experts say the Winchcombe space rock that crashed on a Cotswolds driveway last year could help explain how Earth got its oceans.
The Winchcombe meteorite that hit a driveway in Gloucestershire last February is thought to hold clues to where Earth’s vast oceans came from.
Ashley King, a researcher with the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, said 12 percent of the sample was water: “The composition of this water is very, very similar to the composition of water in Earth’s oceans. This is indeed proof that asteroids and bodies like Winchcombe have made very important contributions to the Earth’s oceans.”
Dr. King also confirmed that Winchcombe was the first case of a meteorite containing extraterrestrial water, albeit encased in minerals, in the UK. All this is due to the fact that the 0.5 kg meteorite was extracted within about 12 hours – it was not contaminated by water and materials on Earth.
“We always try to match the composition of water meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials with the composition of water on Earth. Most meteorites are simply contaminated. One of the biggest questions we face in planetary science is where did water on Earth come from? And one of the obvious answers is either comets, in which there is a lot of ice, or asteroids. There will always be debate whether comets or asteroids were the main source of water on our planet,” added Dr. King.
Speaking at De Montfort University, Dr. King said that a meteorite fell from an asteroid somewhere near Jupiter. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago and took about 300,000 years to reach Earth.
There are about 65,000 known meteorites on Earth. It is the first known carbonaceous chondrite found in the UK and the first meteorite found in the UK in over 30 years.
Astronomers say the meteorite crashed into Earth’s orbit at about 31,000 miles per hour, 40 times the speed of sound, before burning up and breaking into smaller pieces. But unlike most shooting stars, this meteorite was large enough that some pieces survived re-entry when it swept over Gloucestershire at 21:54 on February 28, 2021.
All fragments of meteorite material found in the city were then transferred to the Museum of Natural History.
Christina DENISYUK.
Photo: NHM/UNPIX(EUROPE)
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