Scientists have figured out how the Tataween meteorite came to be

The space “guest” fell in 1931 near the Tunisian city of the same name. Nowadays, it has been found out that the meteorite is a diogenite, that is, it belongs to the type of objects made of solidified magma. The formation of the latter takes place inside the asteroid, and then, as a result of slow cooling, rather large crystals are formed.

In Tataouine, the size of crystals reaches up to 5 millimetres, and black veins speak about the impact of high temperature and pressure on them in the past. According to scientists, Tataouine was subjected to a pressure of about 25 GPa. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, for example, this figure reaches only 0.1 gigapascal.