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Rare Moon Mineral Found On Earth
sciencehabit writes "A mineral previously known only from moon rocks and lunar meteorites has now been found on Earth. Researchers discovered the substance — dubbed tranquillityite after the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon in July 1969— at six sites in Western Australia (abstract). The mineral occurs only in minuscule amounts and has no economic value, but scientists say it could be used for age-dating the rocks in which it occurs."
Sounds just like the occasional pearl of wisdom that my brother might offer.
Maybe the people who stole the moon rocks finally decided to scatter them at remote places and run away.
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Most earthly deposits are found in the state of Minnesota and the country of Switzerland.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the theory that Moon was created due to a big collision of Earth with some other celestial body. This theory however is supported by reasoning that in general Moon and Earth have roughly similar composition. Then why tranquillityite is mostly on the Moon, and not Earth. Maybe the general geographical location of this material on Earth (Australia, you say?) would help in reconstructing the collision event, or maybe would lead to conclusion that the collision theory was wrong. Whatever the outcome, we are going to learn something.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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This is a total cover up.
Someone got cold feet and thought they got rid of the evidence until some idiot started to analyse a complete bland piece of gray rock.
I knew one day we'd find the location where the fake "moon" rocks the moon landing hoaxers used came from.
How is there no economic value? Isn't this essentially moon rock?
Moon rocks aren't valuable because they have some special property, they aren't valuable because of exceptional heat resistance or because they repell gravity. They are so valuable because of their scarcity here on earth. People who want to study them only have a very limited supply, short of going up to the moon again and getting more - which is of course inhibitively expensive.
The moon rocks (and the ones found in WA now) are just basalt, a rather un-exciting hard stone made from magma cooling rapidly. Now, the exact conditions that take place make the basic elements within them form into a number of interesting compounds. So, like silica is the main ingredient in sand, clay and quartz, they are all unique and formed through different conditions.
The moon rocks when first analyzed contained three previously unknown compounds. Armalcolite, pyroxferroite and tranquillityite. The first two have since then been discovered on earth, but the third remained elusive until now, when small deposits have been found. As I said before, there isn't anything super special about this compound, it's just that it hasn't ever been found naturally formed on earth till now.
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why does a moon rock taste better than an Earth rock?
No, it is an Earth mineral that takes the same form as a mineral found in greater abundance on the Moon. The paper does not suggest that the mineral came from the Moon.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
So shoot me, I don't live in the US.
Minnesota isn't Texas. We don't shoot people here, we prefer to kill them by waiting for an eternity at a stop-sign waving them through even though we have the right of way.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Then stop telling jokes about us.
Jerk.
Why is it that we non-USians know more about your country than many of you? When you turn 5 (mentally), get someone to explain how dimwitted your comment is and how much you have portrayed your ignorance.
Now, go back to your trailer and your cousin-wife, dumbass.
Hey, don't knock trailer-trash cousin-wives -- they can be all kinds of hot and dirty.
So the moon contains rare earth elements, and now we have rare moon minerals on Earth. MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MINDS, EARTH/MOON SYSTEM!
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
And let the facts get in the way of an opinion? Not likely anyway, but we on Slashdot don't like taking chances.
Is there a page 3 job available? I'll take it thanks.
It's little talked about, but they found convincing evidence that the cow really did jump over the moon.
I am eagerly awaiting the discovery of Titanite.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I say we grind them up mix them into a gel. Once we invent a portal gun, that should come in very handy. Although it'll probably be pure poison.
It's the extra head that does it. No additional brains though - all the more room to fill up with jizz.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Is there a page 3 job available? I'll take it thanks.
Job's already taken by APK - not sure it's what you had in mind. Every day it features another goatse.
So now we know that when they faked the moon landing they actually did it in Australia!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
When we tell jokes about US, they are about (E)U.
When you tell jokes about EU, they are about us.
If you don't understand, don't worry, get rid of your principles, education and .... erm ... that third thing ... ooops.
You seem a little confused on that theory. The theory (which is pretty much accepted by everyone these days) is that a Mars sized object hit the Earth and splashed parts of both the Earth and the object into space.
At one time the Earth had rings! The rings (from the debris that splashed after the impact) gradually came togetther because of gravity and became the moon. So it's part Earth, part some other planet (or possibly a gas giant's moon that was displaced from orbit).
Free Martian Whores!
Actually, not likely.
While the Giant Impact Theory has good standning, any impact between the two bodies would have entirely liquified both bodies. These sort of minerals would have been utterly obliterated. Basalts are indeed formed from lava, but if you heat them up enough (as a collision like this would have done) they will revert back to lava, so there would be no trace of them that we could find.
As they are made up of fairly common minerals (iron, oxygen, silicon, zirconium and titanium with smaller fractions of yttrium and calcium.), it is simply a case of having the right conditions here on earth, with the right mix of ingredients. It is also a factor that on earth, there is a lot of weathering taking place, constantly breaking down rock. If the conditions had been right for these rocks to form some time in the past, there is a good chance that they have been gobbled back into mantle through techtonics or been broken down by wind, water and ice.
It is possible that material is transferred from one body to another (and this is the basis of theories such as Panspermia, and the moon to earth transfer would be one of the easiest. When an asteroid, comet or some other body impacts the moon (or earth, or other planet) it is possible that debris from the impact is ejected from the impact site with enough force to break the gravitational pull generated by the moon. This material could then find itself captured by the gravity of the earth and fall back down. Larger bits could well survive re-entry, but in these cases, it is much more likely that the samples found on earth would be in VERY small areas and highly concentrated. By that I mean, someone would have to drill directly into the rock that came from the moon to find these materials. They would also be in high density - exactly the same as the moon rocks. In this case, while we have found them in Western Australia, the concentration is very very low, meaning that it is more likely that they were infact formed right here on earth.
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