METEORITE MEDLEY

WINCHCOMBE METEORITE

On the evening of 28 February this year a bright, fiery, meteor was visible across much of the south of England, causing a sonic boom as it passed. It was tracked by the UK Meteor Network, who received almost 800 sighting reports from Liverpool down to Cornwall, which, along with videos from CCTV, dashcams and video doorbells, enabled them to plot the meteor’s path. They concluded that it had hit the ground somewhere between SwindonVillage and Bourton-on-the-Hill in Gloucestershire, sparking a search for meteorite fragments across the area.

The next day, what the local paper had described as a “huge space object” was found to be of rather more modest proportions and embedded in the tarmac front drive belonging to the Wilcock family in the Cotswold village of Winchcombe. Hannah Wilcock, 25, said: “When I heard it drop, I stood up and looked out the window to see what was there, but because it was dark I couldn’t see anything. It was only