# Unidentified material of mysterious extraterrestrial origin **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 23, 2024, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528 "2024-01-23T05:15:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/21 "2024-01-23T16:28:03Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > some 3-letter agency kicking in his door and taking both him and the vial. If it’s moon dust he should be worried about a four-letter agency: [NASA](https://www.space.com/11804-nasa-moon-rock-sting-apollo17.html). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/22 "2024-01-23T16:38:13Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > That would be water. Can we really tell Saturn Ring water from Earth water? Mostly water, but if my vial is full of dust and not water even at room temperature, it’s presumably made of that other stuff, filtered from water or ice dust. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/23 "2024-01-23T17:36:09Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > We should be considering that possibility, so if we can get as far as “This matches the chemical and isotopic composition of Martian dust” then the next step will be to figure out whether you could source these components on Earth and if so whether anyone has done so. That should keep XCOM’s forensic accountants busy for a while, right? That makes the job much harder, because to the best of my knowledge, outside of biological chemistry, there’s nothing that we can detect that we can’t synthesize. The only hope for catching a fraud would be to think of a test that the fraudsters didn’t think of. (and I specified “biological chemistry” rather than “organic chemistry” because we have found some organic chemicals in space, but they’re all very simple ones that we could synthesize). Actually, for that matter, do we have to worry about the opposite problem? An extraterrestrial laboratory making something designed to appear terrestrial in origin? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/24 "2024-01-23T17:43:04Z")
Vigilo confido ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/25 "2024-01-23T17:55:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That makes the job much harder, because to the best of my knowledge, outside of biological chemistry, there’s nothing that we can detect that we can’t synthesize. There are crystal structures in iron meteorites that we can’t reproduce because of the timescales involved. To form the patterns requires very slow cooling from molten metal. Up until very recently that cooling rate was thought to be as slow as 1 degree per million years. A recent study indicates that it can happen much faster but even the fastest figure of 6,000 degrees per million years means .006 degrees per year. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0016703785900328](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0016703785900328) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/26 "2024-01-24T05:27:22Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > That would be water. Can we really tell Saturn Ring water from Earth water? one leaves deposits around bathtubs and the other doesn’t? Serious answer: The O16:O18 ratio will be different. Probably the H:D (hydrogen:deuterium) ratio too. ---
**Author:** ![EnolaStraight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/27 "2024-01-24T23:00:27Z")
If the “powdery substance” was some amount of micro-granular alloy consisting of light-weight aluminum and ultra-dense osmium…something that could only be smelted and forged in a 0G environment…that would, by definition, be extra-terrestrial. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/28 "2024-01-25T02:07:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Thus natural occurring oxygen is composed of three stable isotopes which are 18O (with eighteen neutrons), 17O (seventeen neutrons) and 16O (sixteen neutrons). Yikes, the Western Australian Museum needs a better proofreader. The use of “natural” instead of “naturally” is annoying but not as bad as the gross factual errors. Perhaps they mean “nucleons” instead of “neutrons”? ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/29 "2024-01-25T13:14:09Z")
They found the zirconium crystals in some very old Australian rocks were older than the earth. So those crystals could not have come from earth, could they. This relies on the validity of the zirconium crystal dating technique. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/30 "2024-01-26T00:08:59Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And there is one group in particular called the [HED meteorites](https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/hed/hed_what.cfm) (Howardites, Eucrites and Diogenites) that probably came from the asteroid Vesta. This week’s meteorite in Germany appears to be a HED. > **[How NASA predicted the Jan. 21 asteroid crash over Germany](https://www.space.com/how-nasa-predicted-asteroid-2024-bx1-strike)** > > It was a team effort. [![](https://i.postimg.cc/2SRGZtC2/Screenshot-20240125-190245.jpg) ](https://i.postimg.cc/2SRGZtC2/Screenshot-20240125-190245.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/31 "2024-01-26T00:39:06Z")
I think you mean zircon crystals, not zirconium. They are not older than the earth. The [oldest one found](https://www.science.org/content/article/oldest-piece-earth-discovered) is 4.4 billion years old. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/32 "2024-01-26T09:27:03Z")
I _think_ this is a misreading of the crystals being dated as older _than their very old host rock_. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528/33 "2024-02-05T19:25:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > This week’s meteorite in Germany appears to be a HED. Actually it turns out to be an aubrite. > **[Aubrite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrite)** > > Aubrites are a group of meteorites named for Aubres, a small achondrite meteorite that fell near Nyons, France, in 1836. They are primarily composed of the orthopyroxene enstatite and are often called enstatite achondrites. Their igneous origin separates them from primitive enstatite achondrites and means they originated in an asteroid. > Aubrites are typically light-colored with a brownish fusion crust. Most aubrites are heavily brecciated; they are often said to look "lunar" in origin. > Aubrites... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unidentified-material-of-mysterious-extraterrestrial-origin/996528.md?page=1)