NASA finds new comet dust mineral!

[Outbackmanyep]

A new comet dust mineral found from remnants of comet 26P/ Grigg-Skjellerup from a stratospheric dust collection by an ER-2 high altitude jet.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/jun/HQ_08143_comet_dust.txt

[renormalised]

Given silicon's similarity to oxygen in chemical bonding and other properties, I'd say it's formula is most likely MnSi2. Bet it's also probably brown or blackish and I'd say it formed in the presence of water. Most manganese minerals are byproducts of weathering processes or dissolution of other minerals/rock types. I'd say the parent body of the dust grain was a chondrite of some sort.

[Outbackmanyep]

Thanks for the info renormalised!
Quite interesting! I would like to know more! Can you suggest any reading material to learn more about this??

[renormalised]

Any good geology textbook will do, and any textbook on meteorites will give you a good run down. Goto Abbey's Bookshop online, they should have the books you'd be interested in.

If you want to know more feel free to ask:)