A WESTBURY man, who has been collecting meteorites for 30 years, says he has made another discovery after he stumbled across what he believes is a meteorite, on the White Horse.
Gerard Kemp says he initially did not think it was a meteorite, but upon cleaning the item he realised it had a thin glass like coating, called a fusion crust.
He said, “I still don’t believe it myself – that’s why I did not take any pictures when taking it out of the gravel path; I was just thinking it must have been a bearing from some agricultural machinery or something similar. I couldn’t believe it when I started cleaning it and saw the fusion crust. I think the fact that I found the meteorite on Westbury White Horse is quite amazing.
“Meteorites are like little packages of information from an otherwise unattainable part of the universe! I’ve been collecting them for about 30 years and I think this is a great find – it weighs about 38g (just under 1.5 ozs). I found the meteorite on the gravel path at the back of Westbury White Horse where the stone obelisk is. I didn’t bother taking any pictures at the time because I knew the possibility of it actually being a meteorite was very, very rare, but after I cleaned the mud off, I saw a fusion crust. It’s also very heavy and very magnetic.
“As I found it behind the White Horse, I think it should stay in Westbury. I was thinking perhaps Westbury Museum would be the right place for it.”
