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| Thursday Night/Friday Morning 5th October 00:30 am (repeated Friday 12th October 01:05 am) | ||||
| Christmas
Present from Space
by Pete Brown On Christmas Eve 1965, a very strange event occurred in the Leicestershire village of Barwell. One of the villagers was on his way home when he had the shock of his life. There was a blinding flash in the sky, followed by a loud bang. In the confusion he thought it was an aircraft firing rockets, so he dived under the hedge for protection. All around he could hear thudding sounds. What he and the villagers of Barwell witnessed that night wasn't an aircraft, but a meteorite - a fragment of rock from space. Floating around out there are countless pieces of rock and dust - left-overs from the formation of the Solar System. Occasionally, a large fragment is drawn in by gravity, falls as a spectacular fireball and survives long enough to hit the ground. About 300 feet above the ground, the meteorite that was heading for Barwell exploded into fragments. Pieces were scattered over a wide area. One eyewitness described a fragment as 'red hot' when he tried to pick it up, but fortunately no-one was hurt. The British Museum was offering seven and sixpence an ounce for specimens, so, over the days that followed, Barwell became a 'gold town' with scientists and villagers searching for fragments. One piece penetrated nine inches into a tarmac drive, another landed on the bonnet of a car. A piece smashed through a factory roof and another tiny fragment was found later in a vase! When the fragments were put together, the Barwell Meteorite was about the size of a Christmas turkey, making it the largest meteorite to fall in this country in recorded history. The rock itself is a carbonaceous chrondrite and probably came from the Asteroid Belt. It has been dated at 4.5 billion years, which makes it older than the Earth itself. You can see specimens of the Barwell Meteorite on display at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington and at the National Space Centre in Leicester. |
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