Geologists from the University of Johannesburg have taken over the study and analysis of a rare object that has baffled scientists around the globe.
The stone is said to be the hardest substance on earth as well as in outer space. An Egyptian geologist discovered the object in 1997.
One of the UJ geologists working on the project Georgy Belyanin, says when the object was first discovered the scientists attempted to cut it open with a metal saw but the object, which looks much like a normal stone, broke the saw in half.
Belyanin says it also broke a diamond disk.
“When we got the stone later on, I tried to polish it because we needed to see what was inside and we used diamonds to polish because diamonds is the hardest material on earth and I broke the polishing disk which was made of diamonds I broke it in five minutes. We assume that it probably came from outer space and we think it was formed before our sun was formed. All the materials which were found before both on earth and from the outer space our stone is very different from those meteorites – which is very unusual and it contains some chemical compounds which have never been discovered neither on earth nor meteorites.”
