A star fragment in the Egyptian desert

This stone, named Hypatia, would be a vestige of the explosion of a white dwarf .

Hypatia could well be a piece of star that fell into the great sea of sand in Egypt. Discovered in 1996, this 30 gram fragment of very hard black rock containing tiny diamonds poses a problem as to its origin.

An amazing chemical signature

Studies first proved that it was composed of minerals not found on Earth and therefore extraterrestrial, then that its chemical signature did not resemble anything that exists in the Solar System. The only remaining hypothesis is that of a type Ia supernova: the destruction of a white dwarf located in a binary system. Hypatia would be the first trace on Earth of this type of explosion, rare in the Milky Way.

At the edge of the young Solar System

The parent body of Hypatia would have been formed at the edge of the young Solar System from atoms from the supernova, before moving and colliding with the Earth, 28 million years ago. The impact vitrified a circle of sand of 80 km in diameter and transformed it into a yellow glass called Libyan glass, a fragment of which adorns a brooch that belonged to the pharaoh Tutankhamen.