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Researchers Discover Brand New Naturally Occurring Mineral in Tiny Meteorite

The mineral could have been formed when asteroids clumped into one big planet and then later blasted apart.

Researchers discovered 31 new carbon minerals between 2015 and 2019, including edscottite, which is one of the phases that iron experiences when cooling down from a high temperature. Until recently, the mineral had never been found in nature. The edscottite was discovered in a tiny meteorite that has been kept in an Australian museum since 1951. It was officially named this year. Geoffrey Bonning, a planetary scientist at the Australian National University who was not involved in the study, speculated that the mineral could have been formed inside the meteor when asteroids clumped into one big planet and that it may have been blasted apart later after being struck by another astronomical body.