The Winchcombe fireball—That lucky survivor

On February 28, 2021, a fireball dropped ?0.6 kg of recovered CM2 carbonaceous chondrite meteorites in South-West England near the town Winchcombe. We reconstruct fireball's atmospheric trajectory, light curve, fragmentation behavior, and pre-atmospheric orbit from optical records contributed by five networks. The progenitor meteoroid was three orders magnitude less massive (?13 kg) than any previously observed fall. Winchcombe meteorite survived entry because it exposed to very low peak dynamic pressure (?0.6 MPa) due fortuitous combination parameters, notably velocity (13.9 km s?1). A near-catastrophic at ?0.07 MPa points body's fragility. Low speeds which cause pressures are likely necessary conditions for small survive entry, strongly constraining radiant direction general antapex direction. Orbital integrations show that injected into near-Earth region ?0.08 Myr ago never had perihelion distance smaller ?0.7 AU, while other with known orbits approached Sun closer (?0.5 AU) were heated least 100 K higher temperatures.