Looking for an unusual inspiration for a project? Turn to meteorites. Pallasite meteorites are particularly intriguing as they are made of minerals and metal, and they often show their internal and external structures. So on the mantle and in the core structure you can usually see a pattern of the nickel-iron alloys broken by amber-hued or olive-green olivine (a form of magnesium-iron silicate) and peridot crystals suspended in the matrix. Olivine can appear as a single crystal or a cluster or can create a pattern of veins through solid metal. When the light shines through these meteors, the olivine parts creates quite beautiful effects.
Pallasites represent less than 0.2% of all known meteorites and some scientists believe they formed in melted asteroids in a similar way to iron meteorites, where dense iron metal sinks toward the centre to form an iron core; other scientists think that there are very few olivine-rich meteorites in the asteroid belt, and too many pallasite meteorites for them all to have come from a core-mantle boundary. So, according to their theory, these types of formations may have been formed by impact melting.
Among the most famous there are the Seymchan and the Imilac meteorites. Seymchan meteorites originate from an asteroid that broke apart during early solar system history.
Parts of it arrived on Earth thousands of years ago - specimens of the Seymchan meteorite were first discovered in 1967 in the settlement of Seymchan in Siberia's Magadan District. Some of them went through different stages of cutting and were transformed in polished spheres, a trick that allows to admire the internal crystalline structure (some specimen also feature graphite inclusions).
The Imilac meteorite formed in the asteroid belt, and also originated from the mantle-core boundary of an asteroid that broke apart and it was recovered from the Atacama Desert atop the Andes, the highest desert on Earth.
Specimen of these meteorites can often be spotted at auctions: at the moment Sotheby's "Meteorites - Select Specimens from the Moon, Mars, Vesta and More" (27th July) offers a beautiful selection of Seymchan and Imilac meteorites, and it is also possible to admire them at Sotheby's New York (1334 York Avenue, till the day of the auction).
So, if by any chance you are in New York, go and explore meteorites, and note the duality in the mantle and core structure of pallasites. This duality may indeed inspire you unusual effects in any design project.
Besides, don't forget to look at other special specimens like the Seymchan meteorite consisting entirely of the asteroid's metallic core and characterised by the metallic latticework called "Widmanstätten Pattern" (the result of a slow cooling rate that provided sufficient time - millions of years - for two metallic alloys to orient into their crystalline habit).
Sculpted by French artisan, mathematician and engineer Guy Le Berre (who also helped writing the code for the software that directed the complex machinery which carved this meteorite), this specimen features a robust octahedral crystalline matrix associated with Seymchan meteorites and a sculpted surface comprising 720 triangular faces.
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