Australian researchers found moon rocks on Earth

 

Australian researchers have discovered a rare mineral that was thought to be lunar rocks.

The Australian team led by Birger Rasmussen identified the mineral Tranquillityit in rock trenches to the west of the continent, as the researchers in the American journal "Geology" write.

Rock more than a billion years old

The nature and composition of the stones found to agree to the researchers from Curtin University in line with the moon rock. With the help of the mineral can be determined by the age of rocks - so, the team found that the Australian rock is more than a billion years old.

First Tranquillityite from the sea of ​​silence

The first known Tranquillityite did the Apollo 11 brought by the so-called Sea of ​​Tranquility on the moon, the researchers report. The mineral is named after the English word Tranquility (quiet, silence). Until now, these rocks also have been discovered in the Sultanate of Oman. These findings are meteorites that come from the moon.

If you wanted to quantify the importance of the new discovery, it was probably not ten, but maybe a seven, Rasmussen told the Australian newspaper "The Sydney Morning Herald". But he was real thrill felt when it was clear that the stone found the rare mineral of iron, silicon, zirconium, titanium and yttrium. In addition, it contained small amounts of aluminum, magnesium, calcium, niobium, hafnium and rare earths.

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