Two New Minerals Discovered In Meteorite

[Steve Herschbach]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/11/29/minerals-never-seen-earth-somalia-meteorite/10797611002/

[jasong]

Interesting. Had to look up the minerals to see their chemical makeup and if there was any known application for them yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkinstantonite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaliite

In school my research project was on linear mass accelerators (aka coilguns), with the focus being on applications for meteorite mining, or rather - ejecting the mined ore off the asteroid and into something like an Earth orbit, or a direct collision with the moon or maybe even dropping into the Earth or an ocean for further processing without needing rockets or other expensive conveyances.

I wasn't taken too seriously by my advisors but they let me go at it anyways, probably just to get rid of me haha.  The modern era, especially with SpaceX now, is making me look less and less like my head was in the clouds by the day though. Wish it woulda been taken seriously enough back then for me to actually find some kind of work in the field though. 

I still think that someday I think we will be mining asteroids for various minerals that might only form on them, or to shoot over to Moon/Mars colonies. Or sending payloads from Mars back to Earth or who knows where. 

[GB_Amateur]

5 minutes ago, jasong said:

Interesting. Had to look up the minerals to see their chemical makeup and if there was any known application for them yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkinstantonite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaliite

You and I were thinking the same thing -- what is the chemical compostion? -- and I also went to Wikipedia.  The article (which I'm glad was posted/linked here since I find it interesting) was a bit misleading in the first paragraph, saying "Two minerals never seen on Earth before..."; correcting that later in the article they point out (from interviews with University of Alberta scientists) that they both had been synthesized in a lab there over 3 decades ago.  So IMO "first time found in nature" would have been the accurate way to say this initially.  Still good stuff -- science in action.  And does something to be classified as a 'mineral' require that it be found in nature?  Naturally on the earth??  IDK.