Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Stainless steel fell from the sky 400years before it was invented

Stainless steel fell from the sky 400years before it was invented

draculic acid69 - 1-6-2019 at 03:51

As the title says. check this link out;

https://mobile.twitter.com/Kathryn_Coldham/status/1134770819...

This is pretty much a chunk of ss minus the chromium.i thought meteorites contained pgm's in at least a small amount but this says otherwise.so if we ever start mining asteroids for precious metals it's obviously as hit and miss as it is here on earth.looks like the idea is over before it started.we are just going to have to wait for them to fall to earth.

fusso - 1-6-2019 at 04:07

No Cr in there, so not SS. Clickbait confirmed

Morgan - 1-6-2019 at 07:18

As an aside, an alloy of around 28% nickel and remainder iron has a curie temperature like that of gadolinium, around room temperature. You can raise and lower and lower the curie point by varying the nickel content.

Tidbits
Antitaenite is a meteoritic metal alloy mineral composed of iron and nickel, 20–40% Ni (and traces of other elements) that has a face centered cubic crystal structure.

"The pair of minerals antitaenite and taenite constitute the first example in nature of two minerals that have the same crystal structure (face centered cubic) and can have the same chemical composition (same proportions of Fe and Ni)—but differ in their electronic structures: taenite has a high magnetic moment whereas antitaenite has a low magnetic moment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitaenite

And from another source ...
"Later in the same year Hopkinson discovered that a sample of 25% nickel steel furnished to him was practically non-magnetizable at ordinary temperatures ... it retained its non-magnetic condition while being heated up to 700 or 800 C and did not recalesce on cooling from a high temperature. But when the temperature was reduced to a little below 0 C, ferromagnetic properties appeared, which were strongly intensified by further cooling. Moreover, cooling to -50 C with solid carbon dioxide effected such a transformation that, when the specimen was returned to 13 C, it was found changed from a non-magnetizable to a decidedly magnetizable substance; and it remained magnetizable on heating until 580 C was reached. In the neighborhood of this temperature it again became magnetizable and continued so on cooling to the temperature of the room. By these experiments Hopkinson showed that the material can, at ordinary temperatures, exist in either of two quite different states. both of which are stable." (page 4)

Invar and related nickel steels April 4, 1916
http://books.google.com/books?id=ztAOd_hH7h4C&pg=PA23&am...

Invar
"Some formulations display negative thermal expansion (NTE) characteristics."

"One of its first applications was in watch balance wheels and pendulum rods for precision regulator clocks. At the time it was invented the pendulum clock was the world's most precise timekeeper, and the limit to timekeeping accuracy was due to thermal variations in length of clock pendulums. The Riefler regulator clock developed in 1898 by Clemens Riefler, the first clock to use an invar pendulum, had an accuracy of 10 milliseconds per day, and served as the primary time standard in naval observatories and for national time services until the 1930s."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invar

[Edited on 1-6-2019 by Morgan]

draculic acid69 - 2-6-2019 at 02:17

Fusso I know you're not the sharpest tool in the shed (refer to previous posts about taking cyanide and radioactives through an international airport) but that's about the level of comment I've come to expect from you.do you see how Morgan contributed something relevant, intelligent and interesting where as you just said "clickbait confirmed".do you see the difference in the quality of the posts.

Fulmen - 2-6-2019 at 03:08

Drac: But unlike you he wasn't wrong. The principal alloying element in stainless isn't Ni, it's Cr. Besides the stuff has been raining down for 4 billion years, so you're only off by a factor of 40 million. And yet you have the gall to berate others for the quality of their posts?

draculic acid69 - 2-6-2019 at 04:24

Yes I'm aware that meteorites have been falling to earth for 40million yrs, I also said it's like ss minus the chromium.how often do iron and nickel occur in nature as the free metals in those percentages? I thought it was pretty rare.

fusso - 2-6-2019 at 04:27

[rquote]Stainless steel fell from the sky 400years before it was invented[/rquote]
@drac it's YOUR wording in the subject that make the post clickbaity. I hope you're not a journalist in any newspapers.

[Edited on 190602 by fusso]

draculic acid69 - 2-6-2019 at 04:36

The wording seemed like a decent choice when I wrote it.i don't think in terms of clickbaity or not clickbaity.

fusso - 2-6-2019 at 04:40

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69

The wording seemed like a decent choice when I wrote it.i don't think in terms of clickbaity or not clickbaity.

At least, "stainless steel" is a wrong description.

unionised - 2-6-2019 at 05:08

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69

Fusso I know you're not the sharpest tool in the shed (refer to previous posts about taking cyanide and radioactives through an international airport) but that's about the level of comment I've come to expect from you.do you see how Morgan contributed something relevant, intelligent and interesting where as you just said "clickbait confirmed".do you see the difference in the quality of the posts.

Fusso's post achieved two things.
It told me I didn't need to waste time clicking the link.
It explained why (The lack of chromium means it's just a nickel / iron meteorite)

Your post, on the other hand, was factually incorrect (He didn't just sat "clickbait confirmed"- he explained why) and told us very little.

Do you see the difference in quality between the two posts?

Simoski - 2-6-2019 at 12:01

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

And from another source ...
"Later in the same year Hopkinson discovered that a sample of 25% nickel steel furnished to him was practically non-magnetizable at ordinary temperatures ... it retained its non-magnetic condition while being heated up to 700 or 800 C and did not recalesce on cooling from a high temperature. But when the temperature was reduced to a little below 0 C, ferromagnetic properties appeared, which were strongly intensified by further cooling. Moreover, cooling to -50 C with solid carbon dioxide effected such a transformation that, when the specimen was returned to 13 C, it was found changed from a non-magnetizable to a decidedly magnetizable substance; and it remained magnetizable on heating until 580 C was reached. In the neighborhood of this temperature it again became magnetizable and continued so on cooling to the temperature of the room. By these experiments Hopkinson showed that the material can, at ordinary temperatures, exist in either of two quite different states. both of which are stable." (page 4)

Extremely interesting, can anyone explain this to me...

morganbw - 2-6-2019 at 12:22

I guess my question is does it rust?

Sulaiman - 2-6-2019 at 13:52

Quote: Originally posted by Simoski

Extremely interesting, can anyone explain this to me...

I can't explain it in detail (electron weirdness, spin etc.) but at my simple level,

different crystaline structures of the same alloy
(e.g. austenitic, martensitic, ferritic)
may have different magnetic properties.
(ferro-magnetic, para-magnetic and others I cant remember ...)

alloys can adopt diffetent crystaline structures at different temperatures,
e.g. magnetic at normal temperatures, and non-magnetic at some higher temperature range

alloys with a crystaline structure that normally only exists at higher temperatures,
can have the structure 'frozen' by rapid cooling,
so have the magnetic properties of a structure that would not exist if the alloy was allowed to cool slowly.
(think of steel hardening etc.)

P.S. Stainless Steel has different meanings in different countries.
Generally it is a guaranteed minimum chromium content that defines 'stainless'
(e.g. my cheap Chinese 'stainless' calibration weights are cheap (easily rusts) steel with a thin plating of chromium or nickel)
(my 2kg austenitic stainless steel weight can cause only a slight deflection of a compass needle)

AFAIK ... all alloys of iron rust - eventually

P.P.S. to answer the question below;
1) try getting carbon-free iron (>99.998% iron) in bulk
2) enjoy ... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Iron_car...

[Edited on 3-6-2019 by Sulaiman]

SWIM - 2-6-2019 at 14:10

Doesn't it need carbon within certain levels to really be steel?

j_sum1 - 2-6-2019 at 17:01

Quote: Originally posted by SWIM

Doesn't it need carbon within certain levels to really be steel?

AFAIK, "Stainless steel" generally drops this criterion. There are grades of low-carbon SS with negligible carbon content that are designed for certain kinds of welding processes. (Welding SS is a PITA.)

PirateDocBrown - 2-6-2019 at 19:30

I was just thinking asteroidal metal would be more like maraging steel than stainless.

Ubya - 3-6-2019 at 02:40

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69

I also said it's like ss minus the chromium.how often do iron and nickel occur in nature as the free metals in those percentages? I thought it was pretty rare.

well if you think about it like this steel was inventend in the iron age (should it be named the steel age now?), iron is steel minus the carbon

elementcollector1 - 3-6-2019 at 08:02

'In nature' is a bit of a shaky term in this case. Meteorites are quite often iron-nickel alloys (with the occasional spot of iridium or others). As for more planetary formations, native nickel and iron are extremely rarely found, and no data exists on naturally occurring alloys of the two.

As for stainless steel, it's generally accepted that the carbon level is at or below a certain amount (Wikipedia quotes 1.2 wt.%). Meteorites could equally be called 'superalloy without the titanium'.

Asteroids do contain PGMs occasionally - this is thought to be partially responsible for the significant amount of iridium on the planet due to many thousands of impacts over the millennia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_anomaly

Mining asteroids would certainly be a lucrative business if we could get it off the ground, so to speak.

Morgan - 3-6-2019 at 09:35

I found a meteorite in a insignificant looking ziplock bag laying on a shelf in a thrift store. The price was 1 dollar. It's very similar to the composition of the one in the initial post, landing 50,000 years ago in Arizona, the best preserved impact crater on earth.
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/files.php?pid=334069&...
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/files.php?pid=334069&...

So I looked up the item by typing meteorite oxide and found they were selling for 25 cents back in 1961 with a more fanciful info card.
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/469140-meteorite-oxide-fr...
And this one 5th photo down.
https://10minuteastronomy.wordpress.com/category/meteorites/...

"Very little of the original mass of about 150,000 tons survived the impact. Most was vaporized and remains in the soil around Meteor Crater as tiny metal spheroids that condensed out of the vapor cloud. In total just about 30 tons of actual meteorite fragments have been found in the area of Meteor Crater. A great many meteorites were collected after 1886 the year when the first piece was found. The trading post owner near the crater sold over 5 tons of irons to museums all over the world. By the time Barringer arrived in 1904 very few meteorites could be found lying on the surface. Today no hunting for meteorites is permitted near Meteor Crater. So many Canyon Diablo meteorites were found in the 80 years before hunting was stopped that it remains even today a popular specimen in meteorite collections."
https://www.meteorite.com/meteor-crater/

[Edited on 3-6-2019 by Morgan]

draculic acid69 - 4-6-2019 at 06:32

Morganbw that is one of the things that made me think it's like stainless is after 400 yrs it wasn't rusty at all still metallic not red at all.

draculic acid69 - 4-6-2019 at 06:55

I always thought meteorites were like rocks but now I think of it there's no O2 or co2 in space to form oxides or carbonates.that and I didn't know iron/nickel was a common type of meteorite.so iron alloy it is not s.s. pretty closely matches maraging steel.

kulep - 5-6-2019 at 05:54

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69

I always thought meteorites were like rocks but now I think of it there's no O2 or co2 in space to form oxides or carbonates.that and I didn't know iron/nickel was a common type of meteorite.so iron alloy it is not s.s. pretty closely matches maraging steel.

If fact there are a lot of oxides in space; dihidrogen monoxide, carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide and many silicates with metal contents. There are also many hydrides and even complex hydrocarbons, iron and nickel are relatively abundant as in earth's core.

The thing you can't find in space but is very abundant in here is hydrated minerals, as all the oxides are in a solid state

[Edited on 5-6-2019 by kulep]

Morgan - 5-6-2019 at 09:10

Quote: Originally posted by kulep

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69

Tidbits and photos in the article.
"The doghouse with the hole in its roof from the April 2019 meteorite in Costa Rica. The dog, Rocky, was sleeping in the doghouse at the time; he was unharmed, but probably surprised! Image via Michael Farmer/ASU."

'Because these meteorites contain so much mineral-bound water, they could also be useful in learning how water can be extracted from asteroids, a great resource for future astronauts. According to Garvie:"

"Having this meteorite in our lab gives us the ability, with further analysis, to ultimately develop technologies to extract water from asteroids in space."

Mud ball meteorites rain down in Costa Rica
https://earthsky.org/space/mudball-meteorite-fall-aguas-zarc...

zed - 21-6-2019 at 15:50

Hnuh?

Nickel and Iron? They been buddies fer a long time.

Like, since before our solar system was invented.

Seems to me, Nickel and Iron are the materials that are collapsed inwards by gravitation, when a dying star momentarily loses its outwards mojo. First, Gravitational compression......And then, KA-BLAMMO..... Nova time!