The “shock” origin of extraterrestrial diamonds

26.06.2021

It’s the largest diamond ever found in a meteorite, measuring one-tenth of a millimeter. As if that’s not enough, it should also be added that for the first time together with "large" diamonds of this type, nanometer diamonds have been identified (a diamond of one tenth of a millimeter is about 100,000 times larger than a 1 nanometer diamond), as well as nanometer graphite, iron-nickel alloys, iron carbides, and phosphorus. This association allows us to confirm the "shock" origin of extraterrestrial diamonds.

The discovery was made by an international research group coordinated by Fabrizio Nestola of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Padua and by Maria Chiara Domeneghetti of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Pavia, in collaboration with Cyrena Goodrich of the Lunar and Planetary Institute of Houston, Frank E. Brenker of the University of Frankfurt, Annamaria Fioretti of the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources of the National Research Council of Italy, and Konstantin Litasov of the Vereshchagin Institute for High Pressure Physics of Moscow. The study was published in Pnas and is entitled Impact shock origin of diamonds in ureilite meteorites.

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