Oldest human-made quasicrystal discovered in remains of first nuclear blast

Scientists have found what might be the oldest synthetic quasicrystal in the debris of the first-ever atomic bomb test almost 76 years ago.

The report brings together two of the strangest phenomena in chemistry. On 16 July 1945, the Trinity test became the first nuclear detonation, carried out in the New Mexico desert as part of the Manhattan Project during the second world war. In the resulting explosion, particles of silicate-based desert sand were sucked up into the blast’s fireball, before raining down as a glassy mineral called trinitite. These fragments are usually green, but occasionally red trinitite is also found, created from where the sand fused with copper oxide from the test’s recording equipment. The exact conditions that led to the formation of trinitite are still unknown, and it remains a crime to remove the rocks from the desert.