Jonathan Shanklin of the British Astronomical Association peruses the
damage to a hawthorn bush at the scene of a 鈥榯ransient phenomenon鈥�. The
bush鈥檚 82-year-old owner, Arthur Pettifor, was planting onions when he saw
the bush shake. He had witnessed the arrival of a meteorite 鈥� the first
in Britain since 1969.
Shanklin and his surveyor鈥檚 compass were called to Glatton, Cambridgeshire,
to determine the trajectory of the cricket-ball-sized projectile. 鈥業t came
in from due north and down at an angle of 65 degrees,鈥� says Shanklin. This
implies that it was close to free fall.
The meteorite has since travelled on to the Natural History Museum in
London, where Robert Hutchison will classify it. He says it is likely to
be a chondrite 鈥� the most common form of meteorite.
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