Surprise in science and in the community of experts in the United States by the strange creation of an unknown material, the product of a lightning strike on a power line in Sand Hillsa Nebraska dune area.
According to the report published on the website of Bio Bio Chileit was the geologist from the University of Florence, Luca Bindi, who discovered this phenomenon, or as they prefer to call it in science, a new quasicrystal.
This finding, achieved in collaboration with researchers from Princeton University, Caltech and the University of South Florida, was published in the journal PNASwho confirmed thate the material was produced unintentionally by anthropogenic factorsthat is, thanks to the intervention of humans, in this case by the power line, nature was affected as we know it.
The expert analysis
Bindi, who is also Professor of Mineralogy in the Department of Earth Sciences, explained what a quasicrystal is: “Quasicrystals are materials in which the atoms are arranged like a mosaic, in regular patterns that never repeat themselves in the same way, unlike what happens in ordinary crystals.”.
“The sample we analyzed was probably formed by the fusion of sand and material from a power line knocked down by a powerful lightning discharge.”, explained the researcher.
Luca Bindi recounted that “the presence of siliceous glass suggests that it had reached temperatures of at least 1,710 °C” and added: “Research conducted at the University’s Center for Structural Crystallography confirmed that the quasicrystal has a dodecagonal symmetry prohibited by periodic crystallography and a previously undocumented composition”.
“These data suggest in which directions the investigation of other quasicrystals could go and provide more elements to develop technologies capable of synthesizing them.”, concludes Bindi.
