Unusual hexagonal diamonds present in meteorite from one other planet

Diamonds present in 4 meteorites in north-west Africa in all probability got here from an historical dwarf planet, and they’re anticipated to be more durable than Earth diamonds

By Alice Klein

Mysterious hexagonal diamonds that don’t happen naturally on Earth have been found in 4 meteorites in north-west Africa.

“It’s actually thrilling as a result of there have been some individuals within the area who doubted whether or not this materials even existed,” says Alan Salek at RMIT College in Melbourne, Australia, who was a part of the crew that discovered them.

Hexagonal diamonds, like common diamonds, are manufactured from carbon, however their atoms are organized in a hexagonal construction somewhat than a cubic one.

Also referred to as lonsdaleite, hexagonal diamonds had been first reported in meteorites within the US and India within the Sixties. Nonetheless, the beforehand found crystals had been so small – solely nanometres in measurement – that it was onerous to substantiate whether or not they had been actually hexagonal diamonds.

To hunt for bigger crystals, Salek and his colleagues used a strong electron microscope to see into 18 meteorite samples. One was from Australia and the remaining had been from north-west Africa.

They discovered hexagonal diamonds in 4 of the African meteorites, with some crystals measuring as much as a micrometre in measurement – about 1000 occasions greater than earlier discoveries. This allowed the crew to substantiate the bizarre hexagonal construction.

“It’s an vital discovery as a result of now we’ve got bigger crystals, we will get a greater thought of how they fashioned and perhaps replicate that course of within the lab,” says Salek.

Primarily based on the chemical composition of the meteorites that introduced them to Earth, the hexagonal diamonds seem to have fashioned inside dwarf planets, says Andy Tomkins at Monash College in Melbourne, who led the analysis.

The crew’s evaluation suggests the crystals had been created by a response between graphite – which is manufactured from carbon atoms layered in sheets – and a supercritical fluid of hydrogen, methane, oxygen and sulphur chemical compounds that in all probability fashioned when an asteroid crashed into the dwarf planet and broke it into fragments that finally fell onto Earth.

“When the planet broke aside, it was like taking a lid off a Coke bottle – it launched the stress and that drop in stress mixed with excessive temperatures led to the discharge of this supercritical fluid,” says Tomkins.

That is much like the method by which common diamonds are made in labs, by heating graphite with gases like hydrogen and methane, suggesting that a couple of tweaks might produce lonsdaleite as a substitute, says Salek.

Hexagonal diamonds are predicted to be about 60 per cent more durable than common diamonds based mostly on their construction, and this further hardness might have vital industrial functions in the event that they might be made synthetically. For instance, they may doubtlessly be used to make ultra-hard noticed blades or different machine components, says Salek.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2208814119

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