Experts have identified at least two new minerals never before seen on Earth meteor It weighs 14 tons, as it was found in Somalia two years ago. The minerals were also found in one small slice of the space rock, which was sent to the University of Alberta, which is working to discover a possible third mineral.
According to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, the two newly discovered minerals were named elaliite and elkinstantonite, but no other details were revealed.
Classified as “Iron Complex, IAB”, the meteorite is one of more than 350 in that class, but it is the ninth largest ever found.
The meteorite was also named in honor of the city in which it was found, a name also given to the first mineral, and the second was named after Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the Planetary Initiative at Arizona State University and principal investigator of NASA’s upcoming Psyche mission.
Elkins-Tanton plans to send a probe to examine the mineral-rich asteroid for evidence of how the planets in our solar system formed.
“When you find a new mineral, it means that the actual geological conditions, the rock chemistry, were different than what was found before,” Chris Hurd, a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the Meteorite Collection at the University of Alberta, said in a statement.
Hurd added, “That’s what makes it so exciting about this meteorite, you have two formally described minerals that are new to science.”
The meteorite landed outside the city and was discovered for the first time by camel herders who alerted the experts. The space rock is twice as dense as normal Earth rocks and is highly magnetic. Nothing like this has ever been observed on our planet.