A new mineral now called “Wassonite” was disembosom from a 4.5 Billion Year Old Antarctic Meteorite discovered in 1969. The Wassonite mineral is less than a hundred as wide as a human hair which makes it wee.

Keiko Nakamura-Messenger – NASA space scientist said, “Wassonite is a mineral formed from only two elements, sulfur and titanium, yet it possesses a unique crystal structure that has not been previously observed in nature.”

The minerals name was given to honor “John T. Wasson“, a UCLA professor known for his achievements across a broad swath of meteorite and impact research, and was approved by the International Mineralogical Association.

The meteorite that has been formally named as Yamato 691 enstatite chondrite is where the grains of Wassonite were analyzed. Chondrites are primitive meteorites that scientists think were remnants shed from the original building blocks of planets.

The meteorite Yamato 691 is said to be originated from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered on the blue ice field of the Yamato Mountains by the members of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition along with eight more meteorites.

Lindsay Keller – Wassonite co-discoverer, space scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston said, “Meteorites, and the minerals within them, are windows to the formation of our solar system.”

She added, “Through these kinds of studies we can learn about the conditions that existed and the processes that were occurring then.”

Meteors that falls down and hit the very ground of the earth is called meteorites. That is only when a meteor is to be called a meteorite.