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.
Cheddar's J.D. Durkin caught up with the head of NASA Bill Nelson, a former senator, who feels one thing that seems less rancorous on Capitol Hill these days is the work of the space agency.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 22, 2022, with updates on a new Ukraine aid package, a new missile test by Russia, DOJ announcement of $150 Million in COVID-related fraud, the Florida senate supports Gov. DeSantis in stripping Disney of its special tax district, and more.
Scientists say a U.K. patient with a severely weakened immune system had COVID-19 for almost a year and a half. The case underscores the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus.
Cheddar's Lawrence Banton speaks with entrepreneurs leading the way on textile and clothing recycling in an effort to help stem waste in fashion amid the climate crisis.
The FDA just approved a first-of-its-kind treatment for individuals with blood cancer that has proven results of 5-year survival rates. Christi Shaw, CEO of Kite, a Gilead company, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how this treatment works and compares to others currently on the market.
Dr. Neta Lavon, CTO and VP of R&D at Aleph Farms, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how the team sent cow cells to space to further research the production of meat in space, and why developing cultivated meat is so critical to the future of space travel.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 21, 2022, with President Biden set to announce more security assistance funding to Ukraine, polls showing a majority of Americans in favor of transit mask mandates, rapper A$AP Rocky's arrest, and more.
Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding joined Closing Bell to explain why ending the travel mask mandates could put the U.S. in a bad position in the coming months as new COVID-19 variants threaten to cause another spike in cases.
Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, joined Cheddar News to talk about the legal underpinnings of the ruling to lift the federal travel mask mandate. "Judge Mizelle decided that she would issue a nationwide injunction, which she and other conservatives have criticized in the past," he said. "That didn't stop her from doing it this time. She did it by just wiping away the CDC's rule, and she did it, have to say, in an opinion that was, well, I'll be honest, really stupid."
