Diamonds found on Earth are one of the strongest piece pieces of materials but there is a new study that shows that this precious gems have been found in meteorites form space.
One difference between diamonds found on Earth and those from space is that the latter are said to be much stronger.
The study was carried out by an international team of researchers who discovered the largest crystals called lonsdaleite.
The diamonds have an unusual hexagonal atomic structure and were found in a meteorite whose origin may have been from a dwarf planet that experienced a collision with an asteroid billions of years back.
“This study proves categorically that lonsdaleite exists in nature,” Dougal McCulloch, director of the RMIT Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility in Australia, said in a statement.
The unusual structure of the alien diamond could therefore make it much harder than those found within the planet.
Lonsdaleite has also been found in a certain type of meteorite called a ureilite, and it has been manufactured in a lab by shooting graphite disks at a wall at speeds comparable with those of an asteorid impact a planet.
During the study, the team looked at 18 ureilites most from northwest Africa and one discovered by a geology professor at the Monash University, Andy Tomkins on the Nullarbor which is a vast arid plain in southern Australia.
The strange diamonds were found in just four samples, all from northwest Africa.
Details of how these alien diamonds are formed in space is yet unclear and scientists are yet to figure out how it’s possible.
McCulloch and his colleagues in their study made use of advanced electron microscopy techniques to took at slices from the meterorites and deduced that they may have discovered a new formation process for both lonsdaleite and regular diamonds.
That process “is like a supercritical chemical vapor deposition process that has taken place in these space rocks, probably in the dwarf planet shortly after a catastrophic collision,” McCulloch said.
Simply put, the space diamonds were possibly formed by carbon-based materials on a dwarf planet being subject to extreme pressures after a collision with an asteroid.
The researchers also think this hypothesis of diamonds formation during asteroid impact could be in fact wrong and that the diamonds may have just formed at lower pressures after the destruction.
Similar processes are used under controlled environments to produce materials for certain metals, semiconductors, and other products.
On the other hand, Tomkins-led study was published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Tomkins says the space diamond sample provides a new process for industries to attempt to replicate.
“We don’t really know how hard lonsdaleite is,” Tomkins told CNET. “It’s been estimated mathematically to be 58% harder than diamond, but that is yet to be proven by measurement.”
The material might be useful in mining or just for bragging rights about your wild hexagonal space bling.
“We think that lonsdaleite could be used to make tiny, ultra-hard machine parts if we can develop an industrial process that promotes the replacement of pre-shaped graphite parts by lonsdaleite,” said Tomkins.