Earth's Rarest Structure Created by Asteroid?

ok, that's one way to form them...it's a leap to assume its the only way so you require an impact from dual asteroids. I'll go so far as to say it's possible in the pursuit of fame more than a few scientific rules and methods were bent to fit the desired outcome. I could be wrong

I was thinking not dual asteroids striking each other but a single meteor striking the earth.

Quasicrystals require more energy to form than regular crystals. Just like supernovas have an abundance of energy allowing elements heavier than iron (minimum nuclear energy) to form, I would not be too surprised to see quasicrystals form in the high energy meteor impacts.

I have always been intrigued by that picture.

I try to imagine the scenario in which that occurred.

That's gotta be a tough shot to make!

On the other hand, this one works every time.

http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/compadre/demonstrations/examples/48610.html

I would like to know if it was found by a metal detector on a WWII battlefield...or perhaps WWI? So many bullets flying, bound to have 2 bullets colliding somewhere, sometime.

Guessing one bullet (pierced) was at its minimum velocity, while the other was at near maximum velocity (piercing).

And....if the guy that was supposed to be on the receiving end of the pierced bullet, ever knew his life was spared....

"A quasiperiodic crystal, or quasicrystal, is a structure that is ordered but not periodic. A quasicrystalline pattern can continuously fill all available space, but it lacks translational symmetry. While crystals, according to the classical crystallographic restriction theorem, can possess only two, three, four, and six-fold rotational symmetries, the Bragg diffraction pattern of quasicrystals shows sharp peaks with other symmetry orders, for instance five-fold.

Aperiodic tilings were discovered by mathematicians in the early 1960s, and, some twenty years later, they were found to apply to the study of quasicrystals. The discovery of these aperiodic forms in nature has produced a paradigm shift in the fields of crystallography. Quasicrystals had been investigated and observed earlier,^[2] but, until the 1980s, they were disregarded in favor of the prevailing views about the atomic structure of matter. In 2009, after a dedicated search, a mineralogical finding, icosahedrite, offered evidence for the existence of natural quasicrystals.^[3]

Roughly, an ordering is non-periodic if it lacks translational symmetry, which means that a shifted copy will never match exactly with its original. The more precise mathematical definition is that there is never translational symmetry in more than n – 1 linearly independent directions, wheren is the dimension of the space filled, e.g., the three-dimensional tiling displayed in a quasicrystal may have translational symmetry in two dimensions. The ability to diffract comes from the existence of an indefinitely large number of elements with a regular spacing, a property loosely described as long-range order. Experimentally, the aperiodicity is revealed in the unusual symmetry of the diffraction pattern, that is, symmetry of orders other than two, three, four, or six. In 1982 materials scientist Dan Shechtman observed that certain aluminium-manganese alloys produced the unusual diffractograms which today are seen as revelatory of quasicrystal structures. Due to fear of the scientific community's reaction, it took him two years to publish the results^[4][5] for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011.^[6]"...

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasicrystal}

It'll have some value if it takes Fred's mind off graphene for awhile.

Maybe it'll make some novel new laser device possible.

Or be used to make airplane windshields that will reflect laser beams back at their source.

Sounds like great fodder for grant money...

IIRC, before DNA was discovered, Schrodinger suggested that life might be based on some sort of aperiodic crystal.

no way in hell

There are few coincidences.

Baloney.

But this is one...

I would interpret that symbol thusly.....The snakes represent evil or disease, the wings represent the ability to fly above the snakes or triumph over evil, or conquer disease...The pin represents the allegorical spear thrust into the heart of the beast....But in reality it's roots can be traced back to the Greeks....

"A snake coiled around a staff is a widely recognized symbol of healing. The staff belongs to Asklepios, the mythical Greek god of medicine. In ancient Greece the sick would go to be healed at shrines called “asklepieia” where priests often used sacred serpents in their ceremonies. Whether the snakes just scared people into feeling better, or were actually used in treatment, is not clear, but Italian researchers have now examined the healing potential of the “four-lined snake” commonly found in the area. The research was prompted by an ancient relief showing contact between a boy’s wound and the mouth of a large snake. It turns out that snake saliva contains epidermal growth factors which really may help heal wounds. Perhaps the snakes are blessed with this chemical because their mouths are prone to damage during the ingestion of prey.Sacred dogs were also kept in the “asklepieia.” Were they perhaps used to lick wounds? There actually is some evidence that dog saliva, like that of snakes, also contains contains epidermal growth factors. These substances induce healing by causing the proliferation of certain skin cells. Maybe that’s why dogs are always licking themselves! And what happened to Asklepios in Greek mythology? The God of medicine was slain by Zeus, because the chief of the Gods feared that he might make all men immortal! In truth, he was probably slain by Hippocrates, who introduced the revolutionary idea that diseases were not caused by gods and could not be cured by them. Hippocrates (460-377 BC) began the process of careful observation and experimentation. He separated myth and magic from rational therapy. “Every natural event has a natural cause,” he maintained. Hippocrates investigated symptoms and was able to predict the course of disease. Asklepios’ reliance on snakes for healing may yet turn out to have some merit. Proteins isolated from certain snake venoms have powerful anti-clotting effects on the blood and may one day be used in the treatment of thrombosis. "

http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2014/01/03/the-symbol-for-healing/

Merk,

You are correct. The Greeks borrowed the story from the Israelites, to incorporate into their mythology.....word of mouth to written form.

Nice post.

"A microscopic analysis of the meteorite indicated that it had undergone a major shock at some point in its lifetime before crashing to Earth—likely from a collision with another rocky body in space. Such collisions are common in the asteroid belt and release high amounts of energy."

So....the shock of the meteorite striking earth at some phenomenal speed was not enough of a shock??

Just how do these scientists arrive at such a conclusion? Have they measured the shock required, and only another meteor striking it could cause it? And, .......a scientist blasted a sample alloy with another object at the speed of a gun, and it was enough to reproduce the results.....?

So many "scientists" are so loose in their assumptions. Only to be proven wrong, time and again.

There were only a handful of "scientists" studying it and they all agreed that their theory was the only possible explanation. Since they are the experts and they reached a consensus, the science is settled, empirical method is so tedious.