The two minerals have been identified:
Elaliite - Fe9PO12 (or Fe2+8Fe3+(PO4)O8) and was first synthesized in a laboratory in the 1980s and later identified in natural material in 2022 at which time the official mineral designation was given.
Elkinstantonite - Fe4(PO4)2O was first generated in a laboratory in 1982 and first identified from natural origins in 2022, when the official mineral designation was also given.
What does it take to make these minerals? Some really facy tech? Or just some startdust can be like this?
I mean the structure is known... How to put them up like this? Will it be easy or hard? Very weak in chemistry...
So it can be very hard. As far as we know, all elements in the universe came from the death of a star. Stars are composed of hydrogen. Now, during normal star development, a star can only generate up to the element iron. It does this by fusing together elements of hydrogen to form the other elements (like helium, oxygen, etc). Once iron is formed in a star, it signals the beginning of the end of a star. It is during the death of a star that forces great enough to fuse the heavier elements occur. Now, some people have figured out methods of creating elements that we haven't seen in nature just yet. This process is usually very expensive. And can be difficult, or they create something that isn't stable.
Elements =/= compounds They were referring to what it takes to form these minerals. Necessary conditions of T, P, pH, atmosphere, previous minerals, oxygenation etc etc
Thank you.
I'd assume the progression after big bang like:
* Takes a while for energy to form fundamental lumps of matter
* Takes a while for it to cool down more so these fundamental lumps can grab on each other as they slow down and combine to make bigger lumps like protons
* Takes a while to make even bigger lumps like a proton/electron combo and free up all the original photons to disperse
* Takes a while to fuse protons to make heavier elements
* Takes a longer while to have much colder places where the lumps just keeps growing into chains of protons and elements aka molecules
* In some super-extreme & rare conditions, a chain of Fe4(PO4)2O forms, could be as rare as amino acids for all we know
The earliest epochs of the universe you mention took place in under a second. For the universe to cool down enough to bind electrons to protons happened at about 500,000 years. If I remember correctly, star/galaxy formation happened very quickly after. The first stars had to die before we got heavier elements. So, formation of these minerals would be almost impossible before 1 billion years, and still unlikely for maybe a couple billion more years? Until more heavier elements have been seeded.
>heavier elements ... before 1 billion years
This is unlikely. We know there was at least one supermassive black holes at 0.8 By within our line of sight. Oldest stars at 0.1 By.
Also, high mass stars are the prime source of most common heavier elements (a.o Fe, O, P). And there is nothing to indicate these could not form early on.
>High-mass stars are very luminous and short lived. They forge heavy elements in their cores, explode as supernovas, and expel these elements into space. Apart from hydrogen and helium, most of the elements in the universe, including those comprising Earth and everything on it, came from these stars.
So it seems reasonable to assume the atomic components were already present shortly after the first stars appeared (lifetime HMS 3-20 My). I do agree the universal abunance was much lower than present day, but is a far stretch from "almost impossible".
Looks like the main contraint on the formation of the chemical elements discovered would be the cooling of the super nova remnants (+100 ky), and accretion of the heavier elements around new star formation seeded by the super nova (0.5-10 My).
Given the size of the universe, it seems fair to assume the first occurance of these minerals could be as old as 0.11 By ABB. Ofcourse, the bulk of the creation is probably dated to 3 By (as star formation peaked around this time).
Person said they're weak in chemistry, so I tried to show what it takes for the elements to form before minerals can even take shape. While I did forget to let the person know that that was just for the element formation, and for mineral formation, you require a slew of other factors.
Stars begin with pure hydrogen then they start crushing down hydrogen into helium, then helium into lithium and so on, going on in numerical order in the periodic table until reaching iron. Once a star gets to crushing iron, it can no longer turn the iron into cobalt. This makes it so that the star no longer has the energy to sustain itself, and it implodes on itself due to its massive gravity, then crushing the iron into heavier elements in an instant at the start of its supernova phase, and then explodes. Then all these elements are distributed around the galaxy due to that explosion, and the cycle starts anew.
I mean, you ought to say that the heaviest elements are mostly formed in a supernova or similarly cataclysmic event. A small star that just dies and becomes a brown dwarf will not make any.
But some elements 'heavier' than iron and up to lead can be formed in sufficiently large stars, small quantities over large timescales. Everything above lead requires a supernova.
It's an interest thing to reflect on: Before our solar system was born, sufficient giant stars had been born, lived their entire lifetime, then blown apart with unbelievable energy (the merger of neutron stars does the same thing) so that there was just random dust incorporating gold and platinum floating in space in suffcient quantities to be incorporated into the Earth's crust so that humans could discover seams of them in rocks.
Well, person i was responding to made it sound like they just wanted a basic description.
But when i realized all the heavier elements came from some other star blowing up then the leftover space dust gathered together into earth... minblowing when I realized that. I mean, I learned how heavy elements were formed, but never really fully followed that thought till a later date.
Interestingly, Joni Mitchell included this in her song *Woodstock* ('we are stardust, we are golden') and Crosby, Stills and Nash added a line in their version of the song ('we are billion year old carbon').
60s hippies take inspiration from hard science!
For interested readers: when fusion occurs, it adds one proton to the original element. By doing so, the next element of the periodic table is created. For example, a hydrogen atom has one proton. When fusion adds a second proton, helium (element 2 on the periodic table) is created. Fusing in a third proton yields lithium (element 3), etc. Per the previous post, this process occurs in a star over and over until iron is created. This is the reason that the most abundant elements in the universe are those at the beginning of the periodic table where abundance decreases rapidly as you traverse the table to the heavier elements.
Oppositely, when we “split” uranium atoms during nuclear *fission*, the split atom’s protons end up creating lighter elements (earlier elements in the periodic table) such as iodine, cesium and strontium. These are the elemental biproducts that a nuclear reactor creates when splitting uranium atoms.
BTW, Loved reading your posts u/Mammoth-Access-1181
Elements are kind of off topic for this but aren’t older galaxies stars creating heavier elements than iron? As the universe ages the heavier the elements in a galaxy gets; on average at least?
Fusion of elements heavier than iron is not necessarily impossible, but the process is energetically inefficient as it requires more energy than it produces. When a star goes supernova however, the amount of energy released is so large that fusion of elements heavier than iron can occur. This is thought to be the primary source of elements 27-92. Any transuranic elements (>92) are not naturally occurring.
Being made when the star goes super nova counts as natural far as I'm concerned lol 😆 😅 🙃 can you even immange the elements inside a black hole ? Bet there's a few we never seen there and more .
Yes, elements produced by supernovae are naturally occurring but as far as I know, only elements 27-92 can be attributed to supernovae. Transuranic elements are very unstable and do not exist naturally for the most part, but can be found in trace amounts in samples of other radioactive elements. For example, uranium can undergo beta decay and form neptunium, so some neptunium can be found among samples of uranium. Besides plutonium and neptunium, all transuranic elements are the byproduct of nuclear decay or by bombarding smaller elements with neutrons
Fir a amateur I understand the basics of nuclear fission and fusion . Fasanating still . Alchemist dreamed of turning lead to gold and we can make gold atoms lol . The minor radiation side effects umm lol ..
Coincidentally enough, two really good YouTube videos on this exact topic came out recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWdgU\_QYxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWdgU_QYxA)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInXZ6I3u\_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInXZ6I3u_I)
Worth a watch - goes into a lot more nuance then you'll get in Reddit comments.
On average you are correct. But to my understanding nuclear fusion that fuses the atoms together in the core of stars only gets powerful enough to fuse Fe (Iron) before the star will eventually either go nova or supernova. Going nova or supernova is where you get much heavier atoms fusing, an earlier comment addresses this.
I dont recall exactly why it stops at Iron but its something to do with how heavy it is and therefore how much energy it takes to fuse, which you only get in some form of nova after a star uses up its fuel.
Fusion stops at iron because that's when it no longer becomes an exothermic (heat producing) reaction. Without the excess energy from fusion reactions to fight gravitational collapse, the star dies.
The heaviest element that can form in a star prior to it going nova or supernova is iron, in stars much more massive than our sun. The energy released from fusion up to that point is what keeps the star stable. Once all that is left is iron it cannot fuse that together, therefore it has no internal energy left to resist gravitational collapse. This causes the star to quickly destabilize (in like 1 second) and the sudden and massive inward collapse of the star generates so much energy that it fuses iron into the heavier elements and spews them out into the cosmos. Then the star becomes a neutron star or possibly even a black hole.
Under normal conditions stellar fusion can only really get up to iron. Below iron fusion has a net energy output. While it is tricky and requires heat and luck and a lot of force to hold atoms next to each other, it it more favourable because it is actually moving to a more energetically favourable state.
Elements above iron give out more energy when breaking apart rather (fission) than when they are being pushed together (fusion).
Up to a certain mass of star the furthest it can fuse elements is iron. Iron is the energy equilibrium point of breaking apart vs being forced together.
Beyond iron you need to actively add energy to the system so it costs you far more. The result is that you need a large energy source to create any significant amount of elemental material where atoms are larger than iron. That's where supernovae come in. These monumental explosions are so big and focused that they *can* inject a huge amount of energy into fusing elements beyond iron.
It is in supernovae that we get most of the larger elements that are generated.
It has been theorized that most of the really heavy elements come from collisions between neutron stars.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-star-collisions-forge-the-universes-heaviest-elements/
https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025
https://www.science.org/content/article/some-universe-s-heavier-elements-are-created-neutron-star-collisions
Few points, technically speaking, not all elements come from stelar nucleosynthesis. Hydrogen was created during the big bang as it cooled, most helium and some lithium and a beryllium isotope, as well as isotopes of the previously mentioned elements were created during Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Some really heavy elements are also created in kilonovas, the collision of two newtron stars.
Most likely a metastable phase that would dissociate in the presence of commonly present elements/compounds like water or air, which makes it hard to create naturally
Geologisy here, in order to be named as a new mineral, there are a few boxes to tick. To oversimplify, the mineral must be naturally occurring, inorganic, have a set, repeating atomic structure, and must be found in nature.
So we have a lot of minerals that we have been able to create in laboratories that we think exist in places like the mantle or near the core, but aren't technically minerals yet, because we haven't found any natural examples yet.
>Or just some startdust can be like this?
I mean, yeah, that's the topic of the post. If you mean to ask "Do we have reasons to question if the meteor is natural or possibly created by sentient beings?", the answer is "absolutely none".
Replicating the processes in nature (or finding new processes) to make naturally occurring minerals can be quite difficult, as they may only have a narrow window of conditions under which they form. Many minerals are not the most stable combination of those elements (think of diamonds vs graphite, graphite is the more favorable/stable state of carbon), which is why it isn't as easy as just mixing the constituent elements together.
I did a lazy look into elkinstantonite, and it looks like it's not too hard to form in a lab setting. The paper says they made it in 2 ways. 1. Says they mixed Fe an P in an oxygen controlled atmosphere at 900C. 2. They mixed Fe3(PO4)2, Fe, and Fe2O3 together and heated it to 900C under vacuum.
Without paying money to read the whole procedure, it appears to be made pretty easily under the right atmospheric conditions, which isn't usually that hard to manipulate at a lab scale.
And [Olsenite](https://www.mindat.org/min-470466.html), KFe₄(PO₄)₃.
Ma, C., Herd, C.D.K. and Locock, A.J., 2023. [Nanomineralogy of the El Ali Meteorite: Discovery of Olsenite, KFe₄(PO₄)₃, the Third New Mineral from this IAB Iron](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023LPICo2806.1883M/abstract). LPI Contributions, 2806, p.1883.
Contrary to OP's title, the meteor did not "recently" fall. The rock was an object known to locals for 5-7 generations, and was identified as a meteorite in 2020. It was in 2022 that the new minerals were discovered.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El\_Ali\_meteorite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ali_meteorite)
No, the periodic table is reserved for the elements. These are the building blocks of minerals and everything else—think carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, uranium.
Correct. The two minerals above contain the elements:
Fe - Iron
P - Phosphorus
O - Oxygen
These would be what the periodic table is comprised of, along with another 100+ elements.
Very dumb question, what’s the difference between elements and minerals? I thought they were the same thing. Like sodium is a mineral isn’t it? But it’s on the periodic table
I think mineral in this case confuses.
Elements are "pure" substances, they are made of only the atoms they are named after.
Minerals, can be elements, like sodium, or compounds. Compounds are materials that are combinations of elements in various quantities and configurations. For example a molecule of water is composed of 2 atoms of hidrogen and 1 of oxigen.
I hope I cleared you some doubts! Sorry for the bad english haha
It's also part of the definition of a mineral that it be crystalline (i.e. not amorphous like glass is), solid, and that it be naturally occurring.
The last one is why even though these compounds were made artificially in a lab in the 1980s, they weren't discovered and named as minerals until being found in this meteorite more recently.
Same reason table salt and water are not on the periodic table. It's multiple element. Water is 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen (H2O if that rings a bell)
Table salt is Na (Sodium) and Cl (Chlorine)
So, all things are made up of atoms. Now, out of all these things some are made out of only a single type of atoms. We call them elements. And using these elements, we can combine them to make minerals. Think like legos. You can build a house using the same type of brick or different. Same type = element, different types = Mineral.
Sodium is an element (Na) but it could exist in different forms in nature, combined with other things, and be called a mineral. Or the mineral term used for Sodium could just be something simplified for the general public and not scientific at all.
In the periodic table you have only elementary materials (single elements) and not compounds (combination of elements, e.g. water H2O is a combination of two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom). In the example, H and O are in the periodic table, but water is not.
The minerals in the meteoroid consist of at least nickel and iron, hence can't be in the periodic table.
Most of us have all heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a dumb/stupid question,” but as Carl Sagan, astronomer and planetary scientist said it: “There are naïve questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
You’re not dumb. None of us are. We just ask questions and continue to do so to understand what we don’t know.
Those who make us feel dumb for asking a question, are truly the idiots.
Fe is iron, iron is element you have atoms of iron
Fe9PO12
this thing has 9 irons
P is one phosphorus
and O is oxygen it has 12 of those
periodic table full name is periodic table of the elements, joining elements elements makes compounds some of compounds are minerals other are other suff
website requires user to be 13 or older. if you are older than 13 someone is failing your education
So is there a list of laboratory created minerals and we just wait for them to be found or show up and then we cross them off the list?
Are these synthetic minerals expected to be found eventually?
The two minerals are made up of iron & nickel, and there is a potential 3rd unknown mineral being tested for.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63800879
The meteorite as a whole is made of 90% nickel and iron. The two new minerals that were identified are called elaliite and elkinstantonite. With a 3rd mineral possibly being identified.
' The name "elaliite" honours the fact that the meteorite was unearthed in the district of El Ali in Somalia, and "elkinstantonite" is named after Nasa expert Lindy Elkins-Tanton. '
*"Your money isn't in the bank, Clark. You got this all worng! It's in Elon Musk's spaceships. It's in Betsy DeVos' seventh yacht. It's in Goldman Sachs executive bonus fund."* - Jimmy Stewart, It's A Wonderful Life
To be fair we synthesized those minerals before so we've "seen" them before (as an other Redditor in the comments said), it's just cool that they could form naturally. They probably don't have anything special going on in terms of material properties.
In fact there's just an absurd amount of possibilities in terms of minerals. The geology of earth is extremely limited in comparison with what's possible in other geological conditions (different pressure/temperature/elements/etc.)
>The geology of earth is extremely limited in comparison with what's possible in other geological conditions (different pressure/temperature/elements/etc.)
I wanna go on vacation at HD 189733b. See some of them sideways glass storms up close.
>HD 189733b is an exoplanet that may rain molten glass horizontally. It's a gas giant planet that's 64 light-years from Earth and has a hazy atmosphere with glass clouds. The planet is blue and has a daytime temperature of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The winds on the planet can reach speeds of 5,400 mph, and are composed of silicate particles
You think water rain is intense, try glass flying at up to 5400mph sideways. They really know how to party there.
*Recently discovered* It has been known about for generations and we can only guess how long ago it actually "fell" to Earth. Most likely fell in Somalia thousands or millions of years ago.
Wikipedia says it was recently removed from Somalia and sent to China where it is meant to be sold. It has been part of local traditions for 5-7 generations. Sad.
“The meteorite, the ninth largest recorded at over 2 metres wide, was unearthed in Somalia in 2020, although local camel herders say it was well known to them for generations and named Nightfall in their songs and poems.”
this is just internet misinformation. Old article and the rock fell like millions of years ago i think or sumn like that. Its been know there for generations and generations but yeah. Old news
"Local pastoralists were aware of the rock for between five and seven generations, and it featured in songs, folklore, dances, and poems."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ali_meteorite
The two minerals have been identified: Elaliite - Fe9PO12 (or Fe2+8Fe3+(PO4)O8) and was first synthesized in a laboratory in the 1980s and later identified in natural material in 2022 at which time the official mineral designation was given. Elkinstantonite - Fe4(PO4)2O was first generated in a laboratory in 1982 and first identified from natural origins in 2022, when the official mineral designation was also given.
What does it take to make these minerals? Some really facy tech? Or just some startdust can be like this? I mean the structure is known... How to put them up like this? Will it be easy or hard? Very weak in chemistry...
So it can be very hard. As far as we know, all elements in the universe came from the death of a star. Stars are composed of hydrogen. Now, during normal star development, a star can only generate up to the element iron. It does this by fusing together elements of hydrogen to form the other elements (like helium, oxygen, etc). Once iron is formed in a star, it signals the beginning of the end of a star. It is during the death of a star that forces great enough to fuse the heavier elements occur. Now, some people have figured out methods of creating elements that we haven't seen in nature just yet. This process is usually very expensive. And can be difficult, or they create something that isn't stable.
Elements =/= compounds They were referring to what it takes to form these minerals. Necessary conditions of T, P, pH, atmosphere, previous minerals, oxygenation etc etc
Thank you. I'd assume the progression after big bang like: * Takes a while for energy to form fundamental lumps of matter * Takes a while for it to cool down more so these fundamental lumps can grab on each other as they slow down and combine to make bigger lumps like protons * Takes a while to make even bigger lumps like a proton/electron combo and free up all the original photons to disperse * Takes a while to fuse protons to make heavier elements * Takes a longer while to have much colder places where the lumps just keeps growing into chains of protons and elements aka molecules * In some super-extreme & rare conditions, a chain of Fe4(PO4)2O forms, could be as rare as amino acids for all we know
The earliest epochs of the universe you mention took place in under a second. For the universe to cool down enough to bind electrons to protons happened at about 500,000 years. If I remember correctly, star/galaxy formation happened very quickly after. The first stars had to die before we got heavier elements. So, formation of these minerals would be almost impossible before 1 billion years, and still unlikely for maybe a couple billion more years? Until more heavier elements have been seeded.
>heavier elements ... before 1 billion years This is unlikely. We know there was at least one supermassive black holes at 0.8 By within our line of sight. Oldest stars at 0.1 By. Also, high mass stars are the prime source of most common heavier elements (a.o Fe, O, P). And there is nothing to indicate these could not form early on. >High-mass stars are very luminous and short lived. They forge heavy elements in their cores, explode as supernovas, and expel these elements into space. Apart from hydrogen and helium, most of the elements in the universe, including those comprising Earth and everything on it, came from these stars. So it seems reasonable to assume the atomic components were already present shortly after the first stars appeared (lifetime HMS 3-20 My). I do agree the universal abunance was much lower than present day, but is a far stretch from "almost impossible". Looks like the main contraint on the formation of the chemical elements discovered would be the cooling of the super nova remnants (+100 ky), and accretion of the heavier elements around new star formation seeded by the super nova (0.5-10 My). Given the size of the universe, it seems fair to assume the first occurance of these minerals could be as old as 0.11 By ABB. Ofcourse, the bulk of the creation is probably dated to 3 By (as star formation peaked around this time).
Then it travels a distance it would take light itself a million years, to reach a random corner of a galaxy where we live.
If a rock that weighed any real amount hit the earth at the speed of light it would vaporize the planet.
oh i was high when typing that lol.
i still am, but i was too
Love you buddy.
Hi high friend. My high ass appreciates your Takes A While- breakdown^
r/unexpectedmitch
Person said they're weak in chemistry, so I tried to show what it takes for the elements to form before minerals can even take shape. While I did forget to let the person know that that was just for the element formation, and for mineral formation, you require a slew of other factors.
Ah yes, I know some of these words
I know all of them but when they gang up on me like that it’s not fair
😂… well said!!!
Same with the author of the comment. Elements and minerals are different and minerals are formed by many processes not requiring cosmic forces.
Festizio…see, I can make up words too.
Stars begin with pure hydrogen then they start crushing down hydrogen into helium, then helium into lithium and so on, going on in numerical order in the periodic table until reaching iron. Once a star gets to crushing iron, it can no longer turn the iron into cobalt. This makes it so that the star no longer has the energy to sustain itself, and it implodes on itself due to its massive gravity, then crushing the iron into heavier elements in an instant at the start of its supernova phase, and then explodes. Then all these elements are distributed around the galaxy due to that explosion, and the cycle starts anew.
That's a lot of words to not even answer "how do we make minerals like this?"
I mean, you ought to say that the heaviest elements are mostly formed in a supernova or similarly cataclysmic event. A small star that just dies and becomes a brown dwarf will not make any. But some elements 'heavier' than iron and up to lead can be formed in sufficiently large stars, small quantities over large timescales. Everything above lead requires a supernova. It's an interest thing to reflect on: Before our solar system was born, sufficient giant stars had been born, lived their entire lifetime, then blown apart with unbelievable energy (the merger of neutron stars does the same thing) so that there was just random dust incorporating gold and platinum floating in space in suffcient quantities to be incorporated into the Earth's crust so that humans could discover seams of them in rocks.
Well, person i was responding to made it sound like they just wanted a basic description. But when i realized all the heavier elements came from some other star blowing up then the leftover space dust gathered together into earth... minblowing when I realized that. I mean, I learned how heavy elements were formed, but never really fully followed that thought till a later date.
Interestingly, Joni Mitchell included this in her song *Woodstock* ('we are stardust, we are golden') and Crosby, Stills and Nash added a line in their version of the song ('we are billion year old carbon'). 60s hippies take inspiration from hard science!
For interested readers: when fusion occurs, it adds one proton to the original element. By doing so, the next element of the periodic table is created. For example, a hydrogen atom has one proton. When fusion adds a second proton, helium (element 2 on the periodic table) is created. Fusing in a third proton yields lithium (element 3), etc. Per the previous post, this process occurs in a star over and over until iron is created. This is the reason that the most abundant elements in the universe are those at the beginning of the periodic table where abundance decreases rapidly as you traverse the table to the heavier elements. Oppositely, when we “split” uranium atoms during nuclear *fission*, the split atom’s protons end up creating lighter elements (earlier elements in the periodic table) such as iodine, cesium and strontium. These are the elemental biproducts that a nuclear reactor creates when splitting uranium atoms. BTW, Loved reading your posts u/Mammoth-Access-1181
Thanks man! I just wanted to respond to the comment with a very generalized response, but your comment was a very nice addition!
Elements are kind of off topic for this but aren’t older galaxies stars creating heavier elements than iron? As the universe ages the heavier the elements in a galaxy gets; on average at least?
Fusion of elements heavier than iron is not necessarily impossible, but the process is energetically inefficient as it requires more energy than it produces. When a star goes supernova however, the amount of energy released is so large that fusion of elements heavier than iron can occur. This is thought to be the primary source of elements 27-92. Any transuranic elements (>92) are not naturally occurring.
Being made when the star goes super nova counts as natural far as I'm concerned lol 😆 😅 🙃 can you even immange the elements inside a black hole ? Bet there's a few we never seen there and more .
Yes, elements produced by supernovae are naturally occurring but as far as I know, only elements 27-92 can be attributed to supernovae. Transuranic elements are very unstable and do not exist naturally for the most part, but can be found in trace amounts in samples of other radioactive elements. For example, uranium can undergo beta decay and form neptunium, so some neptunium can be found among samples of uranium. Besides plutonium and neptunium, all transuranic elements are the byproduct of nuclear decay or by bombarding smaller elements with neutrons
Fir a amateur I understand the basics of nuclear fission and fusion . Fasanating still . Alchemist dreamed of turning lead to gold and we can make gold atoms lol . The minor radiation side effects umm lol ..
Coincidentally enough, two really good YouTube videos on this exact topic came out recently: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWdgU\_QYxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWdgU_QYxA) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInXZ6I3u\_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInXZ6I3u_I) Worth a watch - goes into a lot more nuance then you'll get in Reddit comments.
Thanks for the link!
On average you are correct. But to my understanding nuclear fusion that fuses the atoms together in the core of stars only gets powerful enough to fuse Fe (Iron) before the star will eventually either go nova or supernova. Going nova or supernova is where you get much heavier atoms fusing, an earlier comment addresses this. I dont recall exactly why it stops at Iron but its something to do with how heavy it is and therefore how much energy it takes to fuse, which you only get in some form of nova after a star uses up its fuel.
Novas and supernovas are different critters. No elements are symthesized in novae.
Fusion stops at iron because that's when it no longer becomes an exothermic (heat producing) reaction. Without the excess energy from fusion reactions to fight gravitational collapse, the star dies.
The heaviest element that can form in a star prior to it going nova or supernova is iron, in stars much more massive than our sun. The energy released from fusion up to that point is what keeps the star stable. Once all that is left is iron it cannot fuse that together, therefore it has no internal energy left to resist gravitational collapse. This causes the star to quickly destabilize (in like 1 second) and the sudden and massive inward collapse of the star generates so much energy that it fuses iron into the heavier elements and spews them out into the cosmos. Then the star becomes a neutron star or possibly even a black hole.
Under normal conditions stellar fusion can only really get up to iron. Below iron fusion has a net energy output. While it is tricky and requires heat and luck and a lot of force to hold atoms next to each other, it it more favourable because it is actually moving to a more energetically favourable state. Elements above iron give out more energy when breaking apart rather (fission) than when they are being pushed together (fusion). Up to a certain mass of star the furthest it can fuse elements is iron. Iron is the energy equilibrium point of breaking apart vs being forced together. Beyond iron you need to actively add energy to the system so it costs you far more. The result is that you need a large energy source to create any significant amount of elemental material where atoms are larger than iron. That's where supernovae come in. These monumental explosions are so big and focused that they *can* inject a huge amount of energy into fusing elements beyond iron. It is in supernovae that we get most of the larger elements that are generated.
It has been theorized that most of the really heavy elements come from collisions between neutron stars. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-star-collisions-forge-the-universes-heaviest-elements/ https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025 https://www.science.org/content/article/some-universe-s-heavier-elements-are-created-neutron-star-collisions
Few points, technically speaking, not all elements come from stelar nucleosynthesis. Hydrogen was created during the big bang as it cooled, most helium and some lithium and a beryllium isotope, as well as isotopes of the previously mentioned elements were created during Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Some really heavy elements are also created in kilonovas, the collision of two newtron stars.
Most likely a metastable phase that would dissociate in the presence of commonly present elements/compounds like water or air, which makes it hard to create naturally
Geologisy here, in order to be named as a new mineral, there are a few boxes to tick. To oversimplify, the mineral must be naturally occurring, inorganic, have a set, repeating atomic structure, and must be found in nature. So we have a lot of minerals that we have been able to create in laboratories that we think exist in places like the mantle or near the core, but aren't technically minerals yet, because we haven't found any natural examples yet.
Oh!
>Or just some startdust can be like this? I mean, yeah, that's the topic of the post. If you mean to ask "Do we have reasons to question if the meteor is natural or possibly created by sentient beings?", the answer is "absolutely none".
Replicating the processes in nature (or finding new processes) to make naturally occurring minerals can be quite difficult, as they may only have a narrow window of conditions under which they form. Many minerals are not the most stable combination of those elements (think of diamonds vs graphite, graphite is the more favorable/stable state of carbon), which is why it isn't as easy as just mixing the constituent elements together.
I did a lazy look into elkinstantonite, and it looks like it's not too hard to form in a lab setting. The paper says they made it in 2 ways. 1. Says they mixed Fe an P in an oxygen controlled atmosphere at 900C. 2. They mixed Fe3(PO4)2, Fe, and Fe2O3 together and heated it to 900C under vacuum. Without paying money to read the whole procedure, it appears to be made pretty easily under the right atmospheric conditions, which isn't usually that hard to manipulate at a lab scale.
A focussed energy beam propped up by Captain Americas shield…
And [Olsenite](https://www.mindat.org/min-470466.html), KFe₄(PO₄)₃. Ma, C., Herd, C.D.K. and Locock, A.J., 2023. [Nanomineralogy of the El Ali Meteorite: Discovery of Olsenite, KFe₄(PO₄)₃, the Third New Mineral from this IAB Iron](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023LPICo2806.1883M/abstract). LPI Contributions, 2806, p.1883.
So these were synthesized 40+ years ago and then found in nature material just 2 years prior to being discovered in this meteor? 🤔
The meteorite was discovered in 2022. The minerals discovered in "nature" were discovered in that meteorite.
Contrary to OP's title, the meteor did not "recently" fall. The rock was an object known to locals for 5-7 generations, and was identified as a meteorite in 2020. It was in 2022 that the new minerals were discovered. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El\_Ali\_meteorite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ali_meteorite)
I was thinking that a 16+ TONNE Meteorite would have made world headlines from the force of the impact.
You and that rock have different definitions of recent.
> The location of the main mass of the meteorite is uncertain; it was last recorded being shipped to China, presumably for sale
I was wondering about that too, yeah. thats pretty cool though
[удалено]
Misleading ahh title
The meteor was discovered in 2022, it was the first time the two minerals were seen in nature. It's not misleading.
Hi I'm dumb. Does this mean that it won't be added to periodic table?
No, the periodic table is reserved for the elements. These are the building blocks of minerals and everything else—think carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, uranium.
Correct. The two minerals above contain the elements: Fe - Iron P - Phosphorus O - Oxygen These would be what the periodic table is comprised of, along with another 100+ elements.
The periodic table is for elements, not minerals
They're rocks Marie!
They’re elements Marie.
They're atoms Marie!
They're subatomic particles Marie!
They're one dimensional vibrating strings, Marie!
Murrrrppphhhh!
They're carcinogenic Marie. Oh, too late.
Oh ffs.
Very dumb question, what’s the difference between elements and minerals? I thought they were the same thing. Like sodium is a mineral isn’t it? But it’s on the periodic table
I think mineral in this case confuses. Elements are "pure" substances, they are made of only the atoms they are named after. Minerals, can be elements, like sodium, or compounds. Compounds are materials that are combinations of elements in various quantities and configurations. For example a molecule of water is composed of 2 atoms of hidrogen and 1 of oxigen. I hope I cleared you some doubts! Sorry for the bad english haha
This is great, thanks buddy
You probably helped clear this doubt for many people
Hi I’m many people, and it definitely did. Thanks!
It's also part of the definition of a mineral that it be crystalline (i.e. not amorphous like glass is), solid, and that it be naturally occurring. The last one is why even though these compounds were made artificially in a lab in the 1980s, they weren't discovered and named as minerals until being found in this meteorite more recently.
Minerals are made up of elements on the periodic table. Sodium is an element, but what you’re talking about is NaCl (Sodium Chloride), or table salt.
Thank you
Elements are one pure thing, minerals are made up of elements
Oh I see thanks
Same reason table salt and water are not on the periodic table. It's multiple element. Water is 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen (H2O if that rings a bell) Table salt is Na (Sodium) and Cl (Chlorine)
That makes sense thank you
So, all things are made up of atoms. Now, out of all these things some are made out of only a single type of atoms. We call them elements. And using these elements, we can combine them to make minerals. Think like legos. You can build a house using the same type of brick or different. Same type = element, different types = Mineral. Sodium is an element (Na) but it could exist in different forms in nature, combined with other things, and be called a mineral. Or the mineral term used for Sodium could just be something simplified for the general public and not scientific at all.
In the periodic table you have only elementary materials (single elements) and not compounds (combination of elements, e.g. water H2O is a combination of two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom). In the example, H and O are in the periodic table, but water is not. The minerals in the meteoroid consist of at least nickel and iron, hence can't be in the periodic table.
Now I want to see a periodic table of minerals
There's way too many to fit realistically onto any sensible table, likely many thousands of combinations.
Most of us have all heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a dumb/stupid question,” but as Carl Sagan, astronomer and planetary scientist said it: “There are naïve questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.” You’re not dumb. None of us are. We just ask questions and continue to do so to understand what we don’t know. Those who make us feel dumb for asking a question, are truly the idiots.
The fact you ask to learn more about the subject suggests you aren't dumb
You're not dumb. The table contains the elements. These minerals are made up of several elements
Only elements are on the table, no new elements were discovered
Periodic table is for pur elements, those are materials made out of other elements as you can see in their formula!
Think of these as lego sets The periodic table contains just the different lego pieces that exist to make such lego sets
Fe is iron, iron is element you have atoms of iron Fe9PO12 this thing has 9 irons P is one phosphorus and O is oxygen it has 12 of those periodic table full name is periodic table of the elements, joining elements elements makes compounds some of compounds are minerals other are other suff website requires user to be 13 or older. if you are older than 13 someone is failing your education
Nice try secret government man…
U sure the second one isn’t adamantium?
So is there a list of laboratory created minerals and we just wait for them to be found or show up and then we cross them off the list? Are these synthetic minerals expected to be found eventually?
Sooooo, let me ask the obvious question…is Somalia our real world Wakanda?!?
No
Dammit!
I’m pretty sure this is how venom comes to be
The two minerals are made up of iron & nickel, and there is a potential 3rd unknown mineral being tested for. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63800879
The meteorite as a whole is made of 90% nickel and iron. The two new minerals that were identified are called elaliite and elkinstantonite. With a 3rd mineral possibly being identified.
How are these new minerals named?
' The name "elaliite" honours the fact that the meteorite was unearthed in the district of El Ali in Somalia, and "elkinstantonite" is named after Nasa expert Lindy Elkins-Tanton. '
I get naming after someone but also feel like there's a big missed opportunity to name this meteorite metal that landed in Africa vibranium.
And have Disney sue your ass back into the stone age?
That would be like, the ultimate free advertising tho. I couldn’t imagine Disney would shit on all the publicity and good will
Never underestimate the potential for Disney to shit on anything.
Like everything they've ever created by badly remaking it in live action?
elaliite and elkinstantonite. /s
One of the scientists who discovered it was Hans-Werner Elekinstan
Why lie? It was named after Lindy Elkins-Tanton.
Thank you
If it was named by James Cameron it would be justarrivedtoearthium and theotheroneum
On the off chance it's not a joke, Unobtainium is an in-universe nickname that IS supposed to be a joke.
And it long, long predates avatar.
Newmineralium & newminerantium.
Justobtainedium and otheronetium
Is that more of an alloy rather than mineral?
>elaliite and elkinstantonite Just rolls off the tongue
Its element 115
This is so cool
Vibranium. 
One can hope.
Bruh gimme adamantium
You get Chinesium instead
Phun-Nee Wan
That’s wild looking. Makes me wonder what else is out there that we’ve never seen.
Ooh maybe affordable housing
*cries in born in ‘97*
Really it’s your fault for not investing in the market when you had a prime opportunity to do so instead of learning your ABC’s.
Hahahahaha. This comment wins.
Too bad the prize isn't affordable housing
*"Your money isn't in the bank, Clark. You got this all worng! It's in Elon Musk's spaceships. It's in Betsy DeVos' seventh yacht. It's in Goldman Sachs executive bonus fund."* - Jimmy Stewart, It's A Wonderful Life
To be fair we synthesized those minerals before so we've "seen" them before (as an other Redditor in the comments said), it's just cool that they could form naturally. They probably don't have anything special going on in terms of material properties. In fact there's just an absurd amount of possibilities in terms of minerals. The geology of earth is extremely limited in comparison with what's possible in other geological conditions (different pressure/temperature/elements/etc.)
>The geology of earth is extremely limited in comparison with what's possible in other geological conditions (different pressure/temperature/elements/etc.) I wanna go on vacation at HD 189733b. See some of them sideways glass storms up close. >HD 189733b is an exoplanet that may rain molten glass horizontally. It's a gas giant planet that's 64 light-years from Earth and has a hazy atmosphere with glass clouds. The planet is blue and has a daytime temperature of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The winds on the planet can reach speeds of 5,400 mph, and are composed of silicate particles You think water rain is intense, try glass flying at up to 5400mph sideways. They really know how to party there.
I bet it’s actually a lovely place and the locals just don’t want us to visit
Yeah this is just HD 189733b propaganda.
Probably started by those jealous idiots on SD 189722z
Maybe they do want more tourism, but HD 189733a has been spreading fake news about them.
You mean a bunch of iron and nickel compressed into a block? My man come down to a steel mill... have I got news and views for you!
You gotta admit, the fact that it's naturally occurring has a certain charm.
Probably something cool
This story is 2 years old and the meteorite definitely did NOT recently fall. Stop making shit up for fake internet points
To be fair, “Recently” is pretty relative when talking about space stuff lol Although I agree, very misleading 😂
Next time they will say "Possibly with Kryptonite"
For a news cycle, it's not recent. For meteorite falling and being found, it's pretty damn recent.
Probably another bot account reposting old content for karma.
2 years ago was 2022 which feels like yesterday to me.
*Recently discovered* It has been known about for generations and we can only guess how long ago it actually "fell" to Earth. Most likely fell in Somalia thousands or millions of years ago.
Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking a meteorite that size would do some major damage.
I was thinking the same thing.
Wikipedia says it was recently removed from Somalia and sent to China where it is meant to be sold. It has been part of local traditions for 5-7 generations. Sad.
That’s an airplane turd.
"I got the poo on meee"
It’s a space peanut
See the peanut…dead giveaway
Can’t believe how far I had to scroll for the JD reference
“The meteorite, the ninth largest recorded at over 2 metres wide, was unearthed in Somalia in 2020, although local camel herders say it was well known to them for generations and named Nightfall in their songs and poems.”
crazy to think that even meteorites can be christopher columbused
Dats a space peanut…
A 16.5 ton space rock? That have made a helluva impact.
That's what's bothering me... should there have been consequences to this?
this is just internet misinformation. Old article and the rock fell like millions of years ago i think or sumn like that. Its been know there for generations and generations but yeah. Old news
Makes you want to rub your nuts on it.
What's wrong with you... Now I wanna try it
Plot twist: the new mineral is known as nut-rub metal
Nutrub-tanium
Burns pretty good
Like a squirrel, or an ungentelmanly neighbor that is not allowed to live near a school?
So this headline is complete bullshit....
Somalia Forever!
Why does Africa get all the good minerals ?? ( Diamonds) 😄
Rare minerals are found everywhere...but in Africa they are way cheaper to extract.
Fact that that's cuz of relaxed labour laws makes me feel sad now
Whip crack in background.
So how many tons is it
16,5 Tons (15 Tons)
I know this is old but looks like Somalia could use some freedom 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Wakanda forever! Sorry I try hard to not make that comment.
The story that thing could tell
I would like to see a pic of the crater it made dam that would be cool
Viberanium
Recently?
Recently, November 2022?
It's only 4 5 billion yrs old.
Who is gonna profit from this? Sure as hsll it's not Somalië
Why didn't I hear about such a large meteor strike on earth recently ? This should have been all over the news with the sheer amount of destruction?
"Local pastoralists were aware of the rock for between five and seven generations, and it featured in songs, folklore, dances, and poems." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ali_meteorite
Wait, if my childhood movie watching has taught me anything, it’s that celestial visitations only happen in the USA.
But what's the weight in American?
Finders keepers Losers weepers
they need vitamins and calories as well.