Analysing the Winchcombe meteor fireball
The story behind the first spectrum of a meteor which became a recovered meteorite in the UK
Two years ago, at 21:54:16 GMT on 28 February 2021, my meteor video camera in Loughborough, UK, recorded the Winchcombe meteor fireball over Gloucestershire. Fifty years earlier, as an 11 year old, I read in Patrick Moore’s The Observer’s Book of Astronomy about the Barwell meteorite that fell on Christmas Eve 1965. I thought then it would be amazing to find a meteorite.
With my first chemistry set at nine, I developed a love of chemistry. By 14, I was experimenting in my own home-made laboratory in Gateshead. I left school at 16, worked as a lab assistant and studied part-time to be an analytical chemist. My job used a lot of spectroscopy. With an interest in astronomy, I became interested in spectroscopic applications, especially chemical analysis of astronomical objects by examining their light.