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Natural quasicrystals have been found in the Khatyrka meteorite, where evidence points to an ancient impact shock as the process that formed them. The phrase “on a collision course with Earth” is a hook about that meteorite’s history—not a warning that a quasicrystal-bearing asteroid is currently headed here. The cited studies establish no present-day threat.
What are quasicrystals?
Ordinary crystals repeat their atomic pattern periodically. Quasicrystals are ordered too, but their atomic arrangements are quasiperiodic and can have symmetries—such as fivefold symmetry—that periodic crystals cannot. Their unusual structure does not mean they are disordered.
The first studied natural example, named icosahedrite, was reported in meteoritic material. The Smithsonian record gives its composition as Al63Cu24Fe13 (Smithsonian Institution, 2012).
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The meteorite at the center of the story is Khatyrka, a CV3 carbonaceous chondrite found in Russia. Its mineral assemblage preserves evidence of a violent impact in the early Solar System. Petrological analysis indicates that pressure and temperature varied across the material; some portions reached at least 5 GPa and 1,200 °C. The proposed sequence is that impact shock melted aluminium–copper-bearing minerals, then rapid cooling and solidification produced quasicrystalline and other metal phases (Nature Communications, 2014).
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Those conditions are inferred from the meteorite’s minerals and shock evidence. Researchers did not directly observe the ancient collision, so the formation pathway is a scientific interpretation of the surviving material rather than a recording of the event itself.
What quasicrystal phases have been reported in Khatyrka?
Khatyrka contains more than one reported quasicrystalline phase. They differ in composition and symmetry, so “the Khatyrka quasicrystal” does not refer to a single identical material in every sample.
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| Phase | Reported composition | Symmetry and context |
|---|---|---|
| Icosahedrite | Al63Cu24Fe13 | Icosahedral; the first studied natural quasicrystal reported in meteoritic material (Smithsonian Institution, 2012). |
| Decagonite | Al71Ni24Fe5 | Decagonal; reported as a second natural quasicrystal from Khatyrka (Smithsonian Institution, 2015). |
| Additional icosahedral phase | Al62.0(8)Cu31.2(8)Fe6.8(4) | Icosahedral; another natural phase reported in Khatyrka (Scientific Reports, 2016). |
Have scientists reproduced the impact explanation?
Laboratory shock-recovery experiments tested whether an impact could produce related quasicrystalline material. Researchers used plate impacts to reproduce aspects of the proposed conditions and recovered quasicrystals at micron scale. That result supports the physical plausibility of impact synthesis; it does not recreate the whole natural collision or prove every detail of Khatyrka’s history (PNAS, 2016).
The authors summarized the significance of the result this way: “Successful synthesis by an experimental shock, with starting materials similar to the exotic intermetallic alloys in the Khatyrka meteorite, demonstrates a mechanism that is feasible in space but not in any natural setting on Earth.” This is wording from the study’s authors, not a quotation from a named researcher.
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What is known about Khatyrka’s cosmic history?
A 2018 study estimated Khatyrka’s cosmic-ray exposure age at about 2–4 million years, assuming the meteoroid was less than 3 metres in diameter. A larger meteoroid could imply a greater estimate. The study also inferred that a relatively recent shock event occurred less than 600 million years ago; this is an upper bound for that inferred event, not the age of the Solar System or a direct date for each quasicrystal (Meier et al., Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2018).
Is asteroid 89 Julia heading for Earth?
No such conclusion follows from these studies. Meier and colleagues proposed asteroid 89 Julia as a possible parent body for Khatyrka, based on factors including a matching reflectance spectrum, impact history and proximity to orbital resonances. That is a candidate-parent hypothesis, not a confirmed identification. The studies do not provide a current orbit for an incoming quasicrystal-bearing object or an impact probability for Earth.
Quick Recap
What the evidence supports
- Khatyrka is a meteorite in which natural quasicrystal phases have been reported.
- Mineral evidence supports an ancient impact-shock explanation for their formation, and laboratory recovery experiments show that related shock synthesis is physically possible.
- The possible link to asteroid 89 Julia remains a hypothesis; it is not evidence of a current collision threat.
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