NEW PRIMITIVE MINERAL FOUND IN METEORITE - a titanium oxide named panguite

The mineral in question is called Panguite, a titanium oxide named after the Pan Gu, a giant from Chinese mythology that created the world through separating ying from yang and thus forming the skies and the Earth. It was discovered by a team of Caltech scientists looking through a space rock called the Allende meteorite, which was part of a larger meteorite that broke into thousands of fragments over the Mexican state of Chihuahua in 1969. The scientists believe panguite is among the oldest minerals formed in the Solar system.

Carbonaceous chondrites are a diverse class of primitive meteorites and the Allende meteorite is the largest specimen ever found on Earth and it has been extensively studied ever since. So far, nine new primitive minerals, including panguite, has been discovered on the meteorite. The search for these minerals involves the use of scanning electron microscopes on the space rocks, and specifically on areas such as refractory inclusions (which is also where panguite was found). Refractory inclusions are among the first solid objects formed in the solar system and contain minerals that are stable at high temperatures and in extreme environments (thus the "refractory" in the name) produced by the solar nebula.

Scientists continue to study primitive minerals such as panguite in an effort to learn more about the conditions under which they formed and subsequently evolved, thus increasing our understanding of the origins of our solar system.

ScienceDaily