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A material that doesn't exist on Earth

17 points| prostoalex | 3 years ago |npr.org

6 comments

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Maursault|3 years ago

> We spoke to Laura Henderson Lewis, one of the professors on the Northeastern team, and she told us the material found in the meteorites is a combination of two base metals, nickel and iron, which were cooled over millions of years as meteors tumbled through space.

That just can't be right. Why would a meteor take millions of years to cool? White dwarf or even a planet, sure, but a meteor?

arctan|3 years ago

That was the previous idea, but this work changes that. It implies that the cooling rates of meteors is actually much faster than previously guessed.

arctan|3 years ago

This is exciting stuff for MatSci people. There are likely other interesting materials that could be made using this process, including the other alloys found in iron bearing meteorites. I expect that the process can be modified and extended.