{"id":17872,"date":"2021-03-09T14:47:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T14:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=17872"},"modified":"2021-03-09T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T14:47:32","slug":"how-scientists-found-rare-fireball-meteorite-pieces-on-a-uk-driveway-and-what-it-could-teach-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/how-scientists-found-rare-fireball-meteorite-pieces-on-a-uk-driveway-and-what-it-could-teach-us\/","title":{"rendered":"How scientists found rare fireball meteorite pieces on a UK driveway \u2013 and what it could teach us"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary Sciences, The Open University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

As people in the UK were settling down to watch the late evening news on February 28, a fresh news story, quite literally, appeared in the night sky<\/a>. A large and very bright fireball was seen over southern England and northern France at 21:54 GMT. It was recorded by many doorbell webcams, so it was a very well-observed fireball<\/a>. More importantly, it was also captured by the automated cameras of the UK Meteor Observation Network<\/a> and similar networks.<\/p>\n

Working with colleagues in France and Australia, the meteor-watchers worked out the fireball\u2019s trajectory and determined where the meteorite pieces could be located, just north of Cheltenham in the UK. Based on their calculations, Ashley King<\/a>, a specialist in meteorites at the Natural History Museum<\/a> in London, made an appeal on local TV and radio stations for information about any unusual black rocks seen to have fallen from the sky.<\/p>\n