The chosen image shows a small section from a sawed-out 24-kilogram plate of the giant Agpalilik iron meteorite from Northwest Greenland. The image is also in the Atronomi article. This is the most spectacular iron meteorite on display at the Natural History Museum in Oslo. The silvery (greyish) material is a right-angle intergrowth of two cubic minerals of almost pure iron, taenite and kamacite. The brown blob, measuring 7.5 cm from top to bottom, comprises the sulfide mineral troilite (FeS). In the original liquid state such low-density blobs were moving upwards through the denser iron melt. We know the upward (outward) direction, because tiny crystals of the slightly denser mineral chromite (FeCr2O4) settled to the bottom of some of the liquid sulfide blobs, including the one in the image (not readily visible in the image). The tiny chromite crystals formed early in the otherwise molten sulfide.
The main Agpalilik meteorite block, originally amounting to more than 20 000 kilogram, lies outside in the front yard of the Geological Museum in Copenhagen. Agpalilik is the largest recovered fragment of the Cape York meteorite family of more than 58 000 kg, which fell in a shower in Greenland in 1818 or earlier. The Inuit people made knives, spears and other tools from this iron.
R.G. Trønnes: Dannelsen av solsystemet, Jorda og Månen. Astronomi 3/2025, 30-37.