Thaindian News

London, Jan 4 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Scientists were left wondering how some crystals were found in nature because they are possible to be made only in the lab. Quasicrystals comes in between crystals and glasses in nature. They are quite unusual and their structure is quite unique.

When the mineral was found in Russia’s Koryak mountains in 2009, scientists started investigation into how the mineral got there. The researchers report in the PNAS Journal that the mineral may have come from space.

How the mineral is formed is currently not know but scientists say it is made up of copper, iron and aluminum. Under natural circumstances, the mineral can remain relatively stable getting scientists to describe it as an impossible mineral.

It was first described by Israeli scientist Daniel Schechtman in the 1980s. When he initially wrote about the mineral, most of the scientific community mocked him with scorn because they believed what he had described was an “impossible” mineral.

For his work, Schechtman was last year honored with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is also credited with discovering the mineral.

The researchers wrote in the journal that, “Our evidence indicates that quasicrystals can form naturally under astrophysical conditions and remain stable over cosmic timescales.”