article_snippet: The so-called quasicrystal was discovered in a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite in a remote region of northeastern Russia.
article_snippet: And studying The so-called quasicrystal could help scientists find out how mysterious materials like this formed in the universe.
article_snippet: Scientists at Princeton UniversityPrinceton University, New Jersey studied an ancient meteorite (shown) and found a quasicrystal with a structure that a quasicrystal was once dubbed 'impossible'.
article_snippet: a quasicrystal was thought such material could not naturally occur in nature because Crystal has a symmetry in which atoms shouldn't form .
article_snippet: Discovery was made by a team from Princeton University, and is the second natural quasicrystal ever found - both in an ancient meteorite (shown).
article_snippet: Prior to a team from Princeton University finding the first natural quasicrystal in 2009, researchers thought that the structures were too fragile and energetically unstable to be formed by natural processes.
article_snippet: ‘The finding of a second naturally occurring quasicrystal confirms that these materials can form in nature and are stable over cosmic time scales,’ said Dr Paul Steinhardt from Princeton University.
article_snippet: Dr Paul Steinhardt from Princeton University said the findings in the journal Scientific Reports raises the possibility that other types of quasicrystals can be formed in nature.
article_snippet: The newly discovered quasicrystal, which is yet to be named, has a structure that resembles flat 10-sided disks stacked in a column.
article_snippet: Crystals with these ‘forbidden symmetries’ had been created in the laboratory, but it wasn't until 2009 that Dr Dr Paul Steinhardt from Princeton University and Dr Paul Steinhardt from Princeton University team reported the first natural quasicrystal, now known as icosahedrite, in a rock that had been collected years before in Chukotka, Russia.
article_snippet: On the left, the top panel shows the symmetry of the first natural quasicrystal called icosahedrite.
article_snippet: the top panel shows the symmetry of the recently discovered quasicrystal, which has not yet been named.
article_snippet: Right is the ordered yet non-standard pattern of the quasicrystal revealed by an electron beam .
article_snippet: Dr Steinhardt reported the first natural quasicrystal, now known as icosahedrite, in a rock that had been collected years before in Chukotka, Russia (shown)
article_snippet: The researchers confirmed that the quasicrystal originated in an extraterrestrial body that formed about 4.57 billion years ago - around the time our solar system formed.
article_snippet: the quasicrystal was found in a different grain of the same meteorite and has 10-fold, or decagonal, symmetry.
article_snippet: The researchers confirmed that the quasicrystal originated in an extraterrestrial body that formed about 4.57 billion years ago, which is around the time our solar system formed (artist's illustration shown)
article_snippet: ‘us'd like to know whether the formation of quasicrystals is rare or is fairly frequent, how the formation of quasicrystals occurs, and whether the formation of quasicrystals could happen in other solar systems.
highlights_snippet: Scientists at Princeton University found a second quasicrystal with a 'forbidden symmetry'
  It was thought such material could not naturally occur in nature .
  