[meteorite-list] First opal-like crystals discovered in meteorite

From: mafer at imagineopals.com <mafer_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:14:32 +0100
Message-ID: <57e210db0558f8f7671d73b0cbfd99d2_at_>

News to me, I must have slept through the part where opal can form crystals.

On 9:51:34 pm 08/03/11 Thunder Stone <stanleygregr at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> List:
>
> Intersting,
>
> Greg S
>
>
> http://scienceblog.com/46855/first-opal-like-crystals-discovered-in-me
> teorite/
>
>
> First opal-like crystals discovered in meteorite
>
>
> Scientists have found opal-like crystals in the Tagish Lake
> meteorite, which fell to Earth in Canada in 2000. This is the first
> extraterrestrial discovery of these unusual crystals, which may have
> formed in the primordial cloud of dust that produced the sun and
> planets of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, according to a
> report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Katsuo
> Tsukamoto and colleagues say that colloidal crystals such as opals,
> which form as an orderly array of particles, are of great interest to
> for their potential use in new electronics and optical devices.
> Surprisingly, the crystals in the meteorite are composed of magnetite,
> which scientists thought could not assemble into such a crystal because
> magnetic attractions might pack the atoms together too tightly. We
> believe that, if synthesized, magnetite colloidal crystals have
> promising potential as a novel functional material, the article
> notes. The formation of colloidal crystals in the meteorite implies
> that several conditions must have existed when they formed. First, a
> certain amount of solution water must have been present in the
> meteorite to disperse the colloidal particles, the report explains.
> The solution water must have been confined in small voids, in which
> colloidal crystallization takes place. These conditions, along with
> evidence from similar meteorites, suggest that the crystals may have
> formed 4.6 billion years ago. _______________________________________
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Received on Wed 03 Aug 2011 09:14:32 PM PDT