Anyone who travels through the vast Great Sand Sea Desert, an imposing expanse of 72,000 km² that connects Egypt to Libya, may come across a intriguing discovery: pieces of yellow glass dotting the sandy landscape.
Named ‘Libyan desert glass’, this peculiar material was first cataloged in a 1933 scientific article.
From then on, it became an object of fascination for mineral collectors due to its singular beauty and relative rarity. However, its origin remained shrouded in mystery for decades, until now.
The hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin gains strength as advances in microscopy technology reveal new perspectives on yellow glass.
Yellow glass found in Africa from a microscopic perspective. – Image: Elizaveta Kovaleva/Reproduction
Scientists, in collaboration with researchers from Germany, Egypt and Morocco, conducted an investigation led by researcher Elizaveta Kovaleva, which points to an intriguing conclusion: the yellow glass of the Libyan desert has its origins in a meteorite impact on the Earth’s surface.
The debate over the origin of this glass has raged for nearly a century, with theories ranging from lunar volcanoes to atmospheric events on Earth.
However, detailed analysis using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) offers a new narrative.
Kovaleva and her team concluded that glass could only be formed at extreme temperatures, between 2,250 °C and 2,700 °C, conditions that indicate a meteoritic impact or nuclear explosion in the Earth’s crust.
The age of the glass, determined to be around 29 million years by previous studies, has raised doubts due to the discrepancy with the relevant desert region.
TEM analysis, based on recently collected samples, provided a more accurate understanding of the formation conditions of the mineral.
However, the discovery raises new questions, since no known crater nearby has the necessary diameter to justify the formation of this glass.
Researchers now face the challenge of deciphering this additional enigma, shedding light on the possible location of the original impact.
Libya’s yellow glass, long a puzzle geological, it seems to hold secrets that go beyond the borders of our planet.
