Imitation crystal won nobel prize and meteorite model

A Nobel Prize-winning crystal block with an 'unprecedented' structure turned out to come from another world.

According to the latest announcement, it seems that the only natural specimen of the quasicrystal is from the universe falling to Earth. If accurate, this finding will completely change our understanding of the necessary and sufficient conditions to form this strange structure.

Research won the Nobel Prize

According to NewScientist , the crystal-like structure also has the same order as ordinary crystals, but their symmetrical form is much more complex. These symmetrical simulations have been used in art for centuries (for example, mosaic tiles), however, until the 1980s, science discovered new structured materials. Crystal imitation at the atomic level.

It was because of that finding that Professor Daniel Shechtman of the Technion Institute of Technology in Israel won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He created a synthetic material consisting of aluminum and magium in a laboratory environment with structure. fake crystal structure.

Now, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and colleagues claims, they have evidence that the only natural specimen has a pseudo-crystalline structure - a rock found in the Koryak Mountains of the eastern country. Russia, actually part of a meteorite.

Steinhardt said his team happened to find this crystal block in 2009. Despite this, many researchers, including experts at the Smithsonian Glenn McPherson meteorite (Washington, USA), remained expressed skepticism about the origin of 'meteorites'.

The magic of nature

Therefore, Steinhardt and MacPherson conducted many analyzes of the specimen and found evidence of 'persuading MacPherson' . More specifically, the specimen can withstand the extreme pressure and temperature of high-speed collisions (enough to create meteorites in the planetary belt). Besides, the abundance of different oxygen isotopes within the rock fragment is also commensurate with the meteorites rather than the level of isotope of rock on Earth.

However, according to Space.com , it is still unclear how fake crystals form in the natural environment. Laboratory crystal specimens are created by dynamically activating a metal agent of matter in a vacuum. But Steinhardt showed that crystal imitation can also form in space, where the environment is much more variable . Also, crystals can be created in many different conditions.

'Nature can create crystals in conditions that people think are crazy,' Steinhardt concluded.