After a week of careful investigation by the children at Chambersbury school, it has been revealed that the strange object that crash-landed on the school field, is in fact a satellite! 

In an assembly on Friday afternoon, Dr Rolfe spoke to the children via Skype, all the way from Bayfordbury Observatory, and confirmed the source of the mysterious wreckage.

Full details of Dr Rolfe's message to the children is as follows;

"After spending some time investigating the samples from the crash site, my colleagues and I came to the following conclusion:

The samples are most likely from a satellite of European (including UK) or American origin.

We detected no radiation and can be confident the crash site is not dangerous (of course, caution must be taken with the sharp pieces of metal).

We know it was definitely not a meteorite, material of alien origin, or someone illegally dumping rubbish.

Modern satellites are designed to safely burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their working life and would never normally reach the ground, but occasionally there can be malfunctions which cause satellites to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled way.

What happened at your school is a very rare event and is very unlikely to ever happen again, so do not worry about this.

It is a fascinating event and you should be proud of the work you have done on investigating the crash site."

Dr Rolfe was able to answer a few of the children's questions and showed them the telescope at Bayfordbury Observatory.