Held meteroite recovered from Winchcombe CREDIT Trustees of the Natural History Museum
One small piece of rock, but a giant discovery for scientists. This is one of the first pieces of meteorite to be discovered in the UK for three decades.
"This is a once in a lifetime experience really for us," says Ashley King from the Natural History Museum.
"So, it's incredibly rare for meteorites to actually be witnessed coming down, landing on the earth, and being recovered."
The rocks that have been found are so rare, they're a type of meteorite never before seen in the UK.
"This is what we call a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, and so that means it comes from the birth of our solar system," explains King.
"So, this rock is 4.6 billion years old, and it contains all the ingredients that were there when our solar system was forming, that went into making asteroids, went into making comets, and ultimately. Went into making planets like the Earth."
When a fireball meteor was seen shooting through the night sky, scientists dared to dream that small pieces of it may have landed.
They asked people to search in an area just north of the English town of Cheltenham and began getting calls from the town of Winchcombe.
Sure enough, the rocks people were finding here were meteorites.
Scientists began searching the local area, that search led them here, to Lachland Bond's parents' farm.
"So, we actually found out via the scientists coming to our door, knocking and saying that there had been a potential meteorite falling on our land and if they could have a little look," explains Bond.
Within an hour, they found something.
"If it gives us a little bit of a glimpse into history, then that will be a wonderful thing to be able to say that it happened on our land," says Bond.
The last time a meteorite was discovered in the UK was back in 1991.
People in Winchcombe sense history has been made here.
"From our point of view, it's exciting, people have actually had a purpose to go out and walk at the moment, not they didn't have a purpose already, but they certainly now have a purpose to go out and walk," says one resident.
"This is exciting news. Yeah, it is, yes. Puts Winchcombe on the map for yet another reason," says another.
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