Two new minerals that have never been discovered on earth before have just been found hidden inside a meteorite. As the ninth largest meteorite ever found, which plummeted from space and smashed into the ground in Somalia, the space rock hiding the pair of minerals may help investigators discover completely new processes that formed the minerals, as well as fuel research by materials scientists. And the researchers behind the once-of-a-kind discovery say there may be even more undiscovered minerals hiding inside the history-making meteorite.
“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,” says Chris Herd, a professor in the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, curator of the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Collection and part of the t4m that made the unique finds. “That’s what makes this exciting: In this particular meteorite, you have two officially described minerals that are new to science.”
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