Deep in a huge crater, scientists have unearthed an astonishing find - the only preserved fragments of an asteroid ever discovered. We've always thought asteroids vaporised when they hit Earth head-on.

In South Africa an asteroid crater wider than London has surrendered some amazing space secrets - the first fragments of a large asteroid ever found. The impact crater, called Morokweng, formed when a huge asteroid slammed into our planet 145 million years ago.

Until now, scientists thought a large asteroid's energy turned into heat when it hit, vaporising the asteroid and melting the ground to form a so-called melt sheet. But drilling deep into Morokweng's melt sheet has revealed a beach-ball-sized lump of asteroid, along with lots of smaller fragments.

How the asteroid fragments came to be embedded in the melt sheet is a big question; they just should not be there.

Somehow chunks of this asteroid survived the impact.

Meteorites that hit in Antarctica are preserved by the extreme cold