Scientists didn’t think it was possible to find pieces of large asteroids that have struck the Earth’s surface.

When a large impactor strikes the Earth, a colossal amount of heat is produced; and the asteroid material is believed to vaporise or fuse with the surrounding rocks. A 10-km-diameter impactor is thought to generate temperatures of between 1,700-14,000C.

But as reported by the BBC, chunks of asteroid have been discovered in a 145 million-year-old, 100 mile-wide crater in Africa.