Scientists have discovered something once thought impossible to exist on Earth in a sand dune in Nebraska, USA: quasicrystals.
According to Scientific alert, pseudocrystalline found inside a fulgurite flakeswhich is also known as “fossil lightning”created by an extremely powerful electric current transmitted to melt sand.
It’s a “the electric current coming from the sky”lightning accidentally struck the Earth and, in a mysterious way, transformed and organized matter into an unprecedented form that science thought impossible to exist for many decades.
This discovery shows that there are previously unknown ways of forming quasicrystals, opening new avenues and new hope for attempting to synthesize them.
Cross section of a fulgurite block with exotic molten material at the core
Cross section of a block of fulgurite with the strange material molten at the core – (Photo: PNAS).
“The discovery of a quasicrystal in a fulgurite with a rarely observed 12-fold symmetry and a composition that has never been reported before suggests that this method could also be promising in the laboratory” – said geologist Luca Bindi from the University of Florence (Italy), lead author of the study.
Article published in scientific journals PNAS further explains that most natural crystalline solids, from table salt to diamonds, follow a pattern: their atoms are arranged in a repeating lattice structure in dimensional space.
There are also amorphous solids like glass, which are a mixture of atoms put together without any rules.
The quasicrystal is a hypothetical state located between the two forms of solid matter above – both regular and irregular. – an idea that appeared in 1980, but only recently have people discovered something similar born from the explosion of an atomic bomb in 1945. But it is not something natural.
Therefore, the discovery of quasicrystals in the sand dunes of Nebraska is the first evidence that it can exist in naturewhen the accidental arrangements of the world create an impact of extremely high temperature and pressure.
Article source: NLD
If there is an error with the article Strange lightning strikes Earth, creating something that cannot exist, or if the content is incorrect, please contact us so we can correct it.
Keyword:
Scientists have discovered something once thought impossible to exist on Earth in a sand dune in Nebraska, USA: quasicrystals.
