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What minerals are found in iron meteorites?
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Meteorite
The Hoba meteorite, lying where it was discovered in 1920 near Grootfontein, Namibia. The largest meteorite on Earth and an iron meteorite by classification, it consists of a nickel-iron alloy and is estimated to weigh about 60 tons.
Iron meteorites are primarily composed of two nickel-iron minerals:
- Kamacite: A nickel-poor mineral containing approximately 5–7 percent nickel by weight. It has a body-centered cubic crystal structure and is the dominant constituent in hexahedrites.123
- Taenite: A nickel-rich mineral with a face-centered cubic structure. It is the primary component of ataxites, which can contain up to 69 percent nickel.123
In octahedrites, these two minerals occur together in an interlocking arrangement known as the Widmanstätten pattern, which is revealed when a polished cross-section of the meteorite is etched with dilute acid. While these minerals define the structural classification of iron meteorites, modern scientific analysis often categorizes these objects based on their chemical abundances of gallium, germanium, and nickel.142