Posted on 09/23/2023 11:13:33 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Geologists have recently discovered two alien minerals unknown to Earth in a meteorite in Somalia. A small, 2.5 ounce (70-gram) fragment of the fifteen thousand kilogram fallen comet known as El Ali revealed the alien ore.
Scientists stumbled upon the unknown mineral in the meteorite while sampling a slice. It was only after analyzing the segment in a lab that they realized they had discovered something completely new.
Alien minerals in El Ali meteorite Researchers, scientists, and geologists are excited by the revelation, as it might help them understand more about asteroids and how they form as well as the possibility of locating more.
Live Science magazine reports the curator and professor in the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta Chris Herd as having stated:
Whenever you find a new mineral, it means that the actual geological conditions, the chemistry of the rock, was different than what’s been found before. That’s what makes this exciting: In this particular meteorite you have two officially described minerals that are new to science.
Grecian Delight supports Greece Herd named one of the alien deposits ‘elaliite’ after the El Ali meteorite. The other he termed ‘elkinstantonite’ after Professor Lindy Elkins-Tanto, the vice president of the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. Elkins-Tanton is also the chief investigator of what they call the ‘Psyche’ mission, part of the NASA operation to reach the Asteroid Psyche 16 by 2023.
How asteroids form Elkins-Tanton is famous for her work on the formation of asteroids, which the foreign elements may help in deciphering. For that reason, Herd named one after her, saying that:
Lindy has done a lot of work on how the cores of planets form, how these iron nickel cores form, and the closest analogue we have are iron meteorites. So it made sense to name a mineral after her and recognize her contributions to science.
Asteroid-Earth Asteroid-Earth. Credit: Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library/Corbis, CC-ZERO / Wikimedia Commons The El Ali meteorite is composed of more than three hundred unfamiliar IAB elements and iron. Nevertheless, the discovery of something non-native to Earth came as a surprise to all. This is something that Herd’s colleague, Dr. Andrew Locock, affirmed.
“The very first day he did some analysis he said ‘You’ve got at least two new minerals here,'” Locock said.
Herd called upon his colleague, Locock, to study the segments they found. Locock is an expert in identifying formerly unknown minerals and possesses a wealth of knowledge on how asteroids form.
Nightfall Researchers came upon the El Ali meteorite in 2020. That, apparently, was when most of the world found out about it.
According to IFLScience, however, it had had a long history in the oral culture and ancient folklore of the Saar people of Somalia eons before Western scientists learned about it.
The Saars sang songs of its mystery, mightiness, and magic for over five centuries. They also glorified it in poetry and dance and even used it to sharpen their knives, perhaps out of practicality.
Exactly what I was thinking. This article is silly and devoid of empirical science.
Unknowniuminum!
maybe Unobtainium or aintnosuchthingasthisium
Transparent aluminum.
Minerals in geology are classified according to their chemical composition and their crystaline structure. Even the most common rock you can find is made up of particles that are each a tiny crystal with a unique chemistry all fused together because of the intense heat and pressure exerted on them.
An unknown mineral refers - and this is where the writing gets sloppy - to a chemical makeup and crystaline structure that has not been seen before and indicates that a different formation process produced it separate from known formation processes. The reporting is bad, but it's good science. And no there are no unknown elements in this stuff. We have discovered or produced all of the stable elements that can exist.
Does the article mention the properties or elements in the new minerals?
5.56mm
Uh…show me where this new stuff is on the Periodic Table.
Well, in fairness, the Periodic Table classifies elements, not minerals, although in some cases, they are the same.
Exactly so. These particular compounds are not formed by natural processes on Earth, ergo, we have not seen them yet. Not until a chunk of debris arrived from someplace where those processes do exist.
Also, the author's use of the term 'elements' is grossly incorrect. We have here once again an example of an article on a subject that the writer has a distinct lack of knowledge of. The terminology is therefore a bit, shall we say, "inaccurate".
FTA: two alien minerals unknown to Earth
1) Dilithium
2) Naquadria
Are they making more spaces on the periodic table?
Well, are they made from alien elements not on our periodic table? Or are they just new compositions of elements we know about already?
“Elaliite is a mineral with formula Fe 9PO 12 that was first synthesized in a laboratory in the 1980s”.
Slicing the ore sample with a dirty knife?
Minerals are combinations of elements. I was hoping they would show us a chemical diagram of the composition of the new minerals.
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