New+Mineral+Found+By+the+NASA

Washington, 5 APR (EFE).-La NASA and a group of scientists from United States, Japan and Korea of the South found something unexpected when they were studying a meteorite fallen in 1969: a new mineral, called wasonita, with an unprecedented structure so far in nature.

The mineral, one of the smallest identified in the meteorite Yamato 691, has already been added to the list of 4,500 minerals officially approved by the international Mineralógica Association, today reported NASA said in a statement. "The wasonita is a mineral consisting only of two elements, sulfur and titanium, but possesses a unique crystal structure, which had not been so far in the nature", said NASA scientist Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, who led the project. The Crystal, which was found surrounded by "other unknown minerals that are being investigated", has a width of 50 more than a hundred times less than the thickness of a human hair by 450 nanometers.

Finding a very tiny mineral was possible through the microscope transmission of electrons in NASA, able to isolate the grains of the wasonita and determine their chemical composition and its atomic structure, according to the Agency. Nakamura-Messenger hoped that nanotechnology will reveal many more "secrets of the universe" hidden in specimens as the Yamato-691, recovered in 1969, along with other eight meteorites, on an expedition of Japanese scientists to Yamato, Antarctic mountains. After this discovery, the first significant meteorite in Antarctica, United States and Japan, they have found more than 40,000 in the area, including strange aerolitos of Mars and the Moon continue to be studied today.

The name of wasonita ("wassonite") is a tribute to John T. Wasson, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) specialized in research on meteorites and pioneered the use of neutron activation data to classify them. The scientist Lindsay Keller, who used to identify the minerals at the NASA Johnson Space Center, said that the research of meteorites and minerals that contain "is a window to see the creation of our solar system". "Through this type of study we can learn about conditions that existed to ensure how it is formed and the processes that were taking place then", said Keller. EFE