Hrithik Roshan launches the Rado HyperChrome collection in India

High glamour meets high-tech ceramic at Rado launch event

Post By : IJ News Service On 12 February 2013 5:41 PM
In the expedition of hunting extraterrestrial treasures by Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), has helped unravel the nature of fragments of a special variety of meteorite. The Science Channel has prepared a programme- ‘Meteorite Men’ to air on Sunday, May 10 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT), featuring the search for extraterrestrial treasures and revealing some of these lost pieces of the universe for the first time, which the two hunters have discovered traveling the world for years. %% John Koivula, GIA’s chief gemologist and an expert on extraterrestrial and terrestrial gems, helps explain the true nature of the mysteries held in the meteorite on the show. The fragments, according to Koivula, are from a rare stony-iron meteorite known as a pallasite, which contains glassy-looking crystalline fragments of transparent to translucent olivine. These were captured as inclusions in a massive network of two solid elemental metals, nickel and iron. He said “Since olivine occurs much more commonly on Earth and is known by its gem name, peridot, it is both commercially and scientifically important to be able to separate terrestrial olivine found on Earth from extraterrestrial olivine found in pallasitic meteorites,” %% He added “In fact, peridot or olivine extracted from pallasitic meteorites is the only matter from outer space that can, and has been, cut and used as a gem—and knowing the difference is where GIA gets involved.” On “Meteorite Men,” Koivula explains how a gemological microscope can be used to make this separation. In doing so, he helps illuminate the other-worldly-origin of these meteorites, demonstrating why they, and the olivine extracted from them, are so rare and valuable.%% “This form of olivine or peridot is the only extraterrestrial gem we know that is suitable for use in jewellery. It has traveled through the universe from a place and time that will never be precisely known. If you are wearing a peridot fashioned from an olivine fragment extracted from a pallasitic meteorite, that gem could very well be a remnant of the deep interior of some planet or planetoid that no longer exists.”

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