One of the rarest meteorites ever seen was discovered in Italy, specifically in Calabria, on Mount Gariglione. It is a tiny sphere found by a collector, attracted by its unusual metallic shine, who then sent it to the University of Bari.
It is the third object to contain a very rare alloy of aluminum and copper and the second with a quasicrystal of natural origin, i.e. a material considered "impossible" because, unlike normal crystals, its structure follows patterns that never repeat.
The analyzes confirmed the extraterrestrial origin of the object which is currently preserved in the Earth Sciences Museum of the University of Bari.
Its description appeared in the journal Communications Earth & Environment by the Italian research team led by Giovanna Agrosì, professor of Mineralogy at the University of Bari.
Researchers from the Department of Earth and Geo-Environmental Sciences of the University of Bari (Daniela Mele, Gioacchino Tempesta and Floriana Rizzo) and the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Florence (Luca Bindi and Tiziano Catelani) collaborated on the study with Agrosì. and the Italian Space Agency, with Paola Manzari.
(Unioneonline/ss)
