It Came From Outer Space: Scientists Believe They Have Found New Quasicrystal in 4.5 Billion Year Old Meteorite Fragment

This rather attractive rock fragment has a lot of scientists talking this week. According to their tests, it is a previously unidentified natural quasicrystal that came to Earth riding on a meteorite some 4.5 billion years ago. They believe it is composed of the original material from the formation of our planetary system. For creationists who believe the Earth is only 5000 years old, it is a shiny rock in the office of a professor who can’t do math.

Here is the really cool part: until now, all quasicrystals (so named are arranged in a quasi-regular pattern rather than a regular arrangement of atoms in a crystal) could not occur in nature and were only found in synthetic crystal. Then this thing plopped on the desk of researcher Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and his colleagues.

It was found in the Koryak Mountains of Russia and contains metallic copper and aluminum. It has the signature elements of a carbonaceous chondrites and is believed to be part of a primitive meteorite that made from the remnants as the original building blocks of planets.

This is why I am always so jealous of my colleagues over in the science departments. The biggest discovery a law professor can make is a footnote that was previously overlooked by colleagues reading some obscure case on diversity jurisdiction.

Source: Live Science

19 thoughts on “It Came From Outer Space: Scientists Believe They Have Found New Quasicrystal in 4.5 Billion Year Old Meteorite Fragment”

  1. My dad got my bible from Sears Roebuck. It tells ya that the earth was made in only seven days. If we live in the year 2012 how do you come up with some rock that is a million years old? Sounds like BS to me.

  2. Bob Kauten 1, January 4, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Dredd,

    Please take Richard Hoover’s claims of meteorites containing fossils of microbes, with a very large grain of quasicrystal.
    ========================================================
    Members of the Scientific community were invited to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries or to speculate about the implications. With one exception as it was off topic, all commentaries received were published between March 7 through March 10, 2011. By far, most of the commentaries were positive and supportive of the evidence. (Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol 13, bold added).

  3. A pro-con discussion (26 essays) of Dr. Hoover’s discovery of microbe fossils within meteorites, one of those meteorites being older than the Earth, is here.

  4. Bob Kauten 1, January 4, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Dredd,

    Please take Richard Hoover’s claims of meteorites containing fossils of microbes, with a very large grain of quasicrystal. His colleagues at NASA, astrobiologists, and microbiologists (overlapping categorie), don’t agree with his conclusions.

    The journal which published Hoover’s claims, Journal of Cosmology, is also in disrepute.
    ======================================
    The logical fallacy of appealing to majority does not impress me. I look at the evidence. His paper was peer reviewed, modified, then accepted. The practices utilized to study the meteorites are scientifically sound.

    The Journal of Cosmology should not be slandered as you did.

    It is for real, so you have been played for a fool. Here is a list of people and some statements from it, with a link to the page they come from:

    Rudolf Schild, Ph.D.
    Editor-in-Chief,
    Executive Editor
    Astronomy, Astrophysics
    Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian
    Cambridge, MA
    ———————————————————-
    Carl H. Gibson, Ph.D.,
    Executive Editor, Cosmology
    Professor of Engineering Physics and Oceanography
    University of California at San Diego
    Depts. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
    and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences
    ———————————————————-
    N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ph.D.
    Executive Editor, Astrobiology
    Cometary Panspermia
    Director, Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, Buckingham University
    Cardiff University, United Kingdom
    ———————————————————–
    Michael Russell, Ph.D.,
    Executive “Guest” Editor
    Abiogenesis, Life’s Origins
    NASA, Planetary Science & Life Detection Section,
    Jet Propulsion Laboratories,
    California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
    ————————————————————-
    Joel S. Levine, Ph.D.,
    Executive “Guest” Editor
    Human Mission to Mars
    NASA, Senior Research Scientist in the Science Directorate,
    NASA Langley Research Center, VA
    ————————————————————–
    Subhash Kak, Ph.D.,
    Executive Editor
    Computational Quantum Physics
    Head, Department of Computer Science,
    Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma
    —————————————————————
    John McKim Malville, Ph.D.,
    Executive Editor Astrophysical Sciences
    Department of Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences,
    University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
    —————————————————————
    Ronald Becker
    Managing Editor
    Journal of Cosmology
    Modern Cosmology Associates
    ModernCosmologyAssociates@aol.com
    —————————————————-
    Sir Roger Penrose, FRS.
    Executive “Guest” Editor
    General Relativity, String Theory
    Consciousness
    Mathematical Institute,
    University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
    —————————————————–
    R. Norris Keeler, Ph.D.
    Executive “Guest” Editor, Engr. Phys.
    Former Director of Physics, LLNL, UC Berkeley
    Consultant to the US Government
    Rice University Engineer of the year 2011
    Arlington, VA, USA
    ————————————————————-
    Vladimir Evgen’evich Fortov, Academician Russian Acad. of Sci.
    Executive “Guest” Editor, Cosmology
    Vice Prime Minister Russian Federation
    Moscow, Russian Federation
    ————————————————————-
    The Journal of Cosmology now receives over 500,000 Hits per month,
    which makes the Journal of Cosmology among the top online science journals.

    Journal of Cosmology
    ISSN 2159-063X
    —————————————————————
    General Editorial Guidelines: Prior to publication, all (1) Research, (2) Theoretical and (3) Review will be peer reviewed by at least two recognized experts who specialize in the topic under consideration.

    All articles are peer reviewed.
    —————————————————————-
    (Journal of Cosmology)

  5. James in LA 1, January 4, 2012 at 10:33 am

    Dredd, I would hazard to predict that s shovel and five minutes of digging on many worlds in our own system will reveal life, and not just fossils.
    ==================================
    Would not surprise me.

  6. “That whether you believe in a god or not; the Bible isn’t as crazy and contradictory as you may have been led to believe if your instruction came from Main Stream “Christianity”

    There is a logic; a story; and much to think about there that many miss through seeking to force the Bible to conform to what they wish it said.”

    AMS,

    Well said and as you might know I don’t believe that the Torah, the Gospels
    and/or Koran are the words of God. I believe there is a creative force in the Universe and in simply my being alive to write this, I’ve felt its’ touch. I have no idea whatsoever what that creative force is, or what it wants if anything.

    That being said there are many lessons to be learned from these books. The most important one was said by Rabbi Hillel The Elder as a version of “Do unto others……..etc.” In the Rabbi’s formulation all the rest of the Torah was merely comment. As you well know this is what Jesus believed, as did Confucius and the Buddha, before them both.

    That these attempts at passing on wisdom about how to live life have been perverted by those seeking power, is but another episode in the human struggle to evolve.

  7. Heeeeeey,

    That’s no cheap imitation. It’s real meteoric Copper and Aluminum. Signed by the Artist’e.

    Um……..you know that bit about th Earth being only 5000 years old. I’m sorry but this is why people think Christian/Wacko.

    There is no way; from reading the Bible; that a person would be able to determine the age of the Earth.

    The time between the creation of the universe;Earth etc. and the time that God placed man here is never specified or alluded to.

    It is possible to approximate the time between Adam and the present but not before.

    People who actually study the Bible understand that many billions of years may have passed before the Earth was even ready for habitation.

    Partly this is because the words “God created” do not specify a method or a time frame.

    God said, “Let there be light and there was light”

    Seems instantaneous when spoken that way and no doubt it would seem so to an entity to whom a thousand of our years is as a day. So says the Bible.

    So what took billions of our years would seem a much shorter time to God.

    Those who have for thousands of years used the scriptures to enslave and dominate people; those who chose to interpret the Bible rather than allow it to interpret itself have come up with all sorts of insane ways to explain how God created the universe in Seven 24 hr days. Each one more embarrassing than the previous one. it is no wonder people never give the Bible a chance.

    But I won’t go on here. I know most of you guys put up the flat hand when you hear the word and as I say; I’m not surprized or offended.

    I do however find it difficult to allow these ridiculous notions regarding the Bible to go unchallenged. I want you all; to understand what I do. That whether you believe in a god or not; the Bible isn’t as crazy and contradictory as you may have been led to believe if your instruction came from Main Stream “Christianity”

    There is a logic; a story; and much to think about there that many miss through seeking to force the Bible to conform to what they wish it said.

    So: Todays Biblical peeve and thanks for the ear.

  8. At last: Proof that someone was making cheap imitation jewelry 4.5 billion years ago.

  9. Oh Ye of so little faith. Who are you going to believe some wacko scientist, or the Bible? The answer to Frankly’s question: “Why did God put that here to confuse scientists?” is obvious. To test the faith of supposed believers. Who do you think first dreamed up the police tactic of “entrapment”?

  10. Dredd, I would hazard to predict that s shovel and five minutes of digging on many worlds in our own system will reveal life, and not just fossils.

  11. I guess you just have to ask yourself, “Why did God put that here to confuse scientists?”.

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