Meteorite that crashed into Gloucestershire driveway holds extra-terrestrial water: First of its kind in the UK

As reported by Sky News, last February a meteorite that crash landed in Winchcombe, a Gloucestershire town and has hence been analysed and found to be the first known carbonaceous chondrite to have been found in the UK.

According to Britannica, they are a type of meteorite which are important because they provide deep insight into the formation of the solar system.

Ashley King, a researcher in the planetary materials group at the Natural History Museum, confirmed that this is the first time that a meteorite containing extra-terrestrial water, has fallen in the UK.

The meteorite recovered was uncontaminated by Earth’s water

As per the report, Dr King made the comments at the British Science Festival. He is quoted as saying,

The composition of that water is very, very similar to the composition of water in the Earth's oceans.

It's a really good piece of evidence that asteroids and bodies like Winchcombe made a very important contribution to the Earth's oceans.

One of the main hurdles of studying water in meteorites is that very often, they get contaminated by Earth’s water. However, in the case of this meteorite, it was recovered within around 12 hours, which is super quick and so it were still uncontaminated.

King further stated,

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.

The meteorite could reveal crucial questions about the Earth's water

Dr King revealed that their analysis suggests that the meteorite has been derived from an asteroid somewhere near Jupiter. It is believed to have formed 4.6 billion years ago and took about 300,000 years to reach Earth.

According to Dr. King, the current findings of water could prove very valuable in answering the age old debate of where the water on Earth came from: whether it came from comets or asteroids? He continued,

The composition of the water in Winchcombe is a much better match, so that would imply that asteroids - carbonaceous asteroids - were probably the main source of water to the inner solar system, to the Earth.

Sources:

Sky News: Extra-terrestrial water found for first time in meteorite that landed in UK

Britannica: carbonaceous chondrite

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