The extraordinary story of the L chondrite meteorites

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1965, the village of Barwell, in Leicestershire, England, was the scene of an extraterrestrial invasion. Rocks rained down from the sky causing damage to buildings and vehicles, and consternation among the locals. It was soon established that these stones were actually meteorites and, with more than 40 kg falling in total, it proved to be the largest meteorite fall in UK history. Analysis showed the Barwell meteorites to be stone meteorites of a particular type known as ordinary chondrites. More specifically, they were a variety called L chondrites, which are among the most common type of stony meteorite so it might be assumed that its story prior to arrival in Barwell might not be especially interesting. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Common as they might be (by meteorite standards), the Barwell meteorites and other L chondrites are ‘ordinary’ only in name and they actually record some truly astonishing events in the history of the Solar System.