A Splashy Meteorite Was Forged in Multiple Collisions

@media ( min-width: 1px ){.newspack_global_ad.global_above_header{min-height: 1px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.global_above_header{min-height: 90px;}} Close Search for: Search Close About Sections Topics Climate Earth Science Oceans Space & Planets Health & Ecosystems Culture & Policy Education & Careers Opinions Projects Eos Election Coverage ENGAGE Editors' Highlights Editors' Vox The Landslide Blog Eos en Español Eos 简体中文版 Print Archive Newsletter Submit to Eos Skip to content Menu .site-header .custom-logo{height: 74px;max-height: 540px;max-width: 600px;width: 145px;}@media (max-width: 781px){.site-header .custom-logo{max-width: 127px;max-height: 65px;}}@media (min-width: 782px){.h-stk:not(.h-sub) .site-header .custom-logo{max-height: 90px;max-width: 176px;}.h-sub .site-header .custom-logo{max-width: 118px;max-height: 60px;}}@media (max-width: 1199px) and (min-width: 782px){.h-stk.h-cl:not(.h-sub) .site-header .custom-logo{max-width: 100%;width: auto;}} Eos Science News by AGU Sign Up for Newsletter Menu Open Search Search for: Search Posted in News A Splashy Meteorite Was Forged in Multiple Collisions The Winchcombe meteorite was recovered, largely from a driveway, just hours after it fell to Earth, preserving evidence that its early relatives could have filled Earth's oceans. by Damond Benningfield 7 June 2024 9 June 2024 Share this: Click to print (Opens in new window) Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) The Winchcombe meteorite crashed into a driveway in Gloucestershire, England, in February 2021. Scientists were able to recover fragments such as this one within hours. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum The Winchcombe meteorite splashed into headlines on 28 February 2021, when it streaked above Gloucestershire, England, and broke apart in the atmosphere. Its largest chunk hit a driveway in the village of Winchcombe and splattered into thousands of pieces. The homeowners discovered the fragments fewer than 12 hours later, and the UK Meteor Observation Network collected the pieces for study. Early analysis revealed that it was a rare type of water-rich meteorite. And a new study reports it had an eventful past, with its parent asteroid breaking apart, then reassembling as a result of several collisions with other bodies. Laboratory analysis has also provided details about the meteorite's birth and evolution and found new evidence that space rocks similar to this one may have provided Earth with water billions of years ago. "It can help us answer one of the biggest questions in planetary science, which is, How did Earth get its water and become a habitable planet?" "The research results have exceeded anything I could have dreamed of," said Luke Daly , a geologist at the University of Glasgow and first author of the new study. "Because we recovered this meteorite so quickly, everything inside it can tell a story about its journey through space, and it can help us answer one of the biggest questions in planetary science, which is, How did Earth get its water and become a habitable planet?" Lucky Survivor The meteorite's descent was observed by both the public and a network of 16 meteor-hunting cameras . In the week after the driveway discovery, more fragments were recovered across the region—the largest portion in a sheep field—bringing the total to about 600 grams. A fragment of the meteorite was discovered hiding in a patch of grass in Gloucestershire. Credit: Luke Daly/University of Glasgow "It very nicely delivered itself to us, then it turned out to be a fascinating little thing," said Jennifer Mitchell , a research scientist at the University of Minnesota and a member of the team that analyzed the meteorite. Winchcombe is a CM chondrite, one of six classes of carbonaceous chondrites . (Chondrites, which formed as dust grains came together early in the solar system's formation, are the most common type of meteorite, but carbonaceous chondrites, which were altered by reactions with water on the surface of their parent asteroids, are rarer, accounting for just 3% of all meteorites.) Winchcombe is brecciated, so it contains bits of several rock types, each with its own history, bound together by smaller sediments. "If it had come in any faster or slower, more steeply or less steeply, it would have been completely burnt up." Analysis of the meteorite and video of its descent revealed that its parent meteoroid was probably 20–30 centimeters in diameter when it hit the atmosphere, with a mass of about 13 kilograms. "The Winchcombe meteorite was so, so lucky to make it through our atmosphere," Daly said. "If it had come in any faster or slower, more steeply or less steeply, it would have been completely burnt up." The meteorite's quick recovery was another stroke of luck because its fragments were uncontaminated by terrestrial water. "Carbonaceous chondrites are particularly porous and are susceptible to contamination," said Philipp Heck , a geochemist at the Field Museum in Chicago who was not involved in the study. "Water can enter the pores and cause not only alterations, but also can bring in biological contaminants that can alter the organic inventory of the meteorite." Maps of Winchcombe meteorite sections show concentrations of manganese (red), iron (green), and calcium (blue). Click image for larger version. Credit: Daly et al., 2024, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.14164 , CC BY 4.0 The research team's analyses revealed that the meteorite contains eight rock types, all of which show evidence of having been altered by water. "We think Winchcombe formed in the outer solar system because it is full of water, and ice is not stable in the hot inner solar system," Daly said. Water must have reacted with minerals on the meteorite's parent asteroid or asteroids (it could contain pieces of several bodies) to form the secondary minerals that the analysis detected. The team found great diversity within rock types as well, all the way down to individual grains. Some grains had been altered by water, whereas others remained pristine. "How can you have completely altered material right next to things that haven't been altered at all? The easiest answer is that they weren't next to each other originally," Mitchell said. "They came together at some later point." Traumatic History During its first 10 million years or so, the parent asteroid or asteroids must have undergone a series of impacts that sent debris into space. Some of the debris splashed back onto the asteroid(s) after each collision, forming the different rock types detected in the meteorite. After this phase, the body settled in the asteroid belt, where it orbited the Sun for billions of years. An impact about 300,000 years ago blasted off the chunk that hit Earth. "Winchcombe's history seems to be quite a traumatic sequence of events," Daly said, "from formation and accretion of dust, ice, and gas, melting those ices, being fundamentally changed by fluids, breaking apart at the grain scale, reforming potentially several times, then being smashed apart again and reaccreting to form the breccia before being launched off its asteroid on a collision course with the Earth." In addition to revealing the asteroid's history, the lab work also supported the suggestion that CM and other carbonaceous chondrites supplied young Earth with water and organic compounds. Daly said that the idea has been hard to assess because CM chondrites are delicate and made of materials that quickly soak up terrestrial water. "It wasn't clear if the water in CMs looked like the Earth because they delivered Earth's water or if they looked like Earth because Earth's water had gotten inside the meteorite," Daly said. Because Winchcombe was recovered so quickly, before any rain could fall, however, there is no question about the source of its water. "It is still a close match to Earth's water, suggesting that the majority of Earth's oceans may have arrived on the backs of water-rich asteroids like Winchcombe." —Damond Benningfield, Science Writer This news article is included in our ENGAGE resource for educators seeking science news for their classroom lessons. Browse all ENGAGE articles , and share with your fellow educators how you integrated the article into an activity in the comments section below. Citation:  Benningfield, D. (2024), A splashy meteorite was forged in multiple collisions,  Eos, 105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EO240243 . Published on 7 June 2024. Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited. 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