Winchcombe: the first UK meteorite in 30 years, with Dr Natasha Stephen

Winchcombe: the first UK meteorite in 30 years, with Dr Natasha Stephen on Wednesday 3 November; talk starts at 7:30pm.

(This event is a rescheduling of the talk on 20 October.)

On the 28th February 2021 a fireball was seen and heard across the UK. Dedicated fireball cameras, as well as dash cams and doorbell cameras, across the UK recorded the event and calculated that a meteorite may have dropped in Gloucestershire. Thanks to a public appeal by UK meteorite scientists, several pieces of the new meteorite were quickly recovered. As part of the initial recovery team, Natasha was one of the first scientists on the scene to see and hold the meteorite. She is now leading an analysis team at the University of Plymouth who have a small fragment of the newly named Winchcombe meteorite, and is beginning to unravel its mysteries. Join us as we explore the science behind the observation, recovery, and classification of the UK’s first new meteorite in 30 years.

Dr Natasha Stephen is a geologist by training, focusing on extra-terrestrial materials & planetary science. Natasha is Director of Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre at the University of Plymouth, where she is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Science & Engineering. Natasha has been working with extra-terrestrial materials from the Moon, Mars, and asteroids for 12 years since starting her PhD at Imperial College London jointly with the Natural History Museum, London. Natasha has searched for meteorites in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and classifies them using the non-destructive techniques available in her own analytical microscopy facility in the SW of England.

Join us on Zoom from 7:20pm; there will be opportunities to ask questions during and at the end of the talk.