Aletai Meteorite from China 10,47 g

Aletai is an iron meteorite of the type IIIE-an from Xinjiang, China first found in 1898.

The mass is composed by kamacite and taenite, with minor plessite, schreibersite and haxonite.

It shows a very nice Widmanstätten patterns, constitued by long phases of nickel–iron alloy.

Large crystals are extremely rare in metals, and in meteorites they occur from extremely slow cooling from a molten state in the vacuum of space when the solar system first formed.

The ribbon-like structure consists of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands.