The 29 million-year-old stone on the necklace of pharaoh Tutankhamun

The big stone in the center of the pharaoh Tutankhamun's necklace is the result of a collision when the meteorite crashed into the Earth 29 million years ago.

Pharaoh Tutankhamun's necklace.(Photo: IFL Science).

About 29 million years ago, sand in the west of the Egyptian desert melted, creating tiny canary yellow glass. Some were used to decorate the necklace worn by King Tutankhamun's chest. New research by Australian and Austrian scientists published on May 2 in the Journal of Geology confirms the type of agate-like glass derived from the collision between meteorite and the Earth's surface.

The temperature arising from a meteorite or above explosion is irregular enough to melt sand in the desert, creating glass beads. Shock waves from the upper explosion are thousands of pascal pressure, but only ground-impact meteorites with shock waves with a pressure of billions of pascal are strong enough to produce reidite minerals.

In the new study, scientists analyzed zircon minerals found in special glass in Egypt. Its structure provides evidence of reidite 's existence . In other words, reidite is transformed into zircon under the action of high pressure shock waves in a meteorite impact.

"Collisions with meteors are a devastating but uncommon event. Aerial explosions occur more frequently, but we can be sure the event is like a collision that creates glass stones. in Egypt will not happen in the near future , " study co-author Aaron Cavosie, a graduate student at Curtin University, Australia, said.

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