Prospectors hunting for gold in southern Russia stumbled upon a chunk of material that turned out to be a meteorite made of material that has never been seen before on Earth.
This alien piece of rock has been named Uakitite after the town it was found in. Scientists presented the discovery of the Uakit meteorite at the Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Moscow.
Researchers say that 98 percent of the meteorite is made up of kamacite, an alloy of iron and nickel. This alloy is made of nearly 90 to 95 percent iron and about 5 to 10 percent nickel. It is formed in space and only found in its natural state in meteors, notes a report by LiveScience.
The remaining 1 to 2 percent of the Uakit meteorite was found to be made of about a dozen minerals that are known to have formed only in space. The composition of this meteorite suggests that it was formed under extreme heat of well over 1,000 degree C, say the researchers.
On further study, researchers found the uakitite as miniscule grains in the rock, no larger than 5 micrometres—less than 25 times the size of a grain of sand. The quantity of Uakitite was so small that scientists could not even accurately put together all of its properties, notes the report.
However, researchers found that it is structurally comparable to two other out-of this-world minerals—carlsbergite and osbornite. Referred to as mononitrides, these minerals contain one nitrogen atom in their make up, notes the report.
Mononitrides are described as being hard and can even be used as an abrasive, said lead researcher Victor Sharygin, from the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy.
While rumours have spread that uakitite is actually harder than diamond—the hardest naturally formed mineral on Earth—Sharygin clarified that this claim is untrue. In fact, "the hardness of uakitite was not measured directly," because the grains were too small, he said. Researchers instead estimated the hardness of uakitite using vanadium nitride, because it closely resembles Uakitite.
Researchers have said that uakitite falls between 9 and 10 on the Mohs hardness scale where a diamond is placed at 10. That means it is hard, but not diamond hard.
