Scientists have confirmed the existence of lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal form of diamond named after British crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale, in ureilite meteorites from the mantle of a planet in our solar system.
According to
the new findings, a large asteroid probably collided with the planet collided about 4.5 billion years ago, and the hexagonal structure of lonsdaleite’s atoms, making it harder than the cubic structure of terrestrial diamonds.