Research Says Asteroid Impacts Produced Rare Kind Of Diamond Material On Earth

The researchers speculate that such advanced materials “may result in new applications ranging from abrasives and electronics to nanomedicine and laser technology.” Coming back to lonsdaleite — which is named after famed crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale — a 2016 research published in Nature mentioned that violent meteorite and asteroid collisions can lead to the synthesis of diamond and lonsdaleite by spontaneous compression of graphite. The research served to explain why lonsdaleite crystals are commonly found around meteor impact sites.

As part of the aforementioned research, scientists managed to create lonsdaleite in a lab using high-powered laser beams, mimicking the conditions created by an impact event. Russia’s Crater of Diamonds – one of the largest diamond fields in the world — was also created by an asteroid impact that punched a crater around 60 miles across in size (via NASA). The massive pressure and heat generated during the event turned graphite flakes into diamonds in areas as far as approximately 8 miles away from the collision site.

However, diamonds are not merely created at impact sites, but they are also found deep within the impact agents themselves. Electron microscope analysis of the Sutter’s Mill meteorite revealed large diamonds in its matrix, according to NASA. Another study from 2020 that was published in PNAS mentioned that diamonds are also formed when small planets — in their early days — collide with each other or an asteroid. Coming to extreme cases, the planet Cancri 55e is thought to be made mostly of diamonds.