MUONIONALUSTA METEORITE - CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE DRAMATIZED IN THREE DIMENSIONS. Iron fine octahedrite - IVA . Northern...

Description

MUONIONALUSTA METEORITE - CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE DRAMATIZED IN THREE DIMENSIONS
Iron fine octahedrite - IVA
Northern Sweden - (67° 48'N, 23° 6'E)
This cube of a Muonionalusta specimen exhibits a meteorite's shimmering crystalline fingerprint in three dimensions. This specimen was cut from a larger meteorite and machined into a perfect cube. The latticework displayed here is only found in select iron meteorites. When the planetary body from which this meteorite originated broke apart billions of years ago, its hot metallic core found few molecules in the vacuum of space to which it could transfer its heat. That and its massive size provided sufficient time - more than a million years - for molecules of the alloys kamacite and taenite to form their octahedral crystalline habit. In effect, the molten iron crystallized very, very slowly in the absolute cold of deep space. As there is no environment other than the vacuum of space that can provide such an extended cooling curve, the presence of this pattern, known as a Widmanstätten pattern, is diagnostic in the identification of an iron meteorite, and different meteorites have different patterns (see lots 49022,49106, 49111,49114 and 49115). A splendid, decorative example of an extraordinary phenomenon. 90 x 90 x 90mm (3.5 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches) and 5.66 kilograms (12.5 pounds).



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