'Biggest UK space impact found'

[Rick]

Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by a team of scientists.

Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen think a large object hit north-west Scotland about 1.2 billion years ago.

The space rock struck the ground near the present-day town of Ullapool, they report in Geology journal.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7314329.stm

[Rick]

It's lucky for the good burghers of Ullapool in Scotland that they weren't around 1.2 billion years ago, because it was around then that the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles would have made a bit of a dent in local house prices.

That's according to the combined forces of the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen, who say that "unusual rock formations" previously thought to have volcanic origins are actually the debris ejected from a meteorite strike which threw material over an area 50km across.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/uk_meteorite_impact/