Outer Space

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Outer Space (or just 'space') is the void that exists beyond any celestial body, including the Earth. This excludes any locality on Earth, the Moon, Mars or other planets or major moons. Asteroids and comets will be included within this section.

But how can we have mineral localities listed in outer space? Minerals in outer space can be detected in one of several ways.

1. Measurements from Earth or orbital telescopes. Absorption spectra in, for example, dust clouds can potentially be used to identify different chemicals and minerals. However this does not necessarily mean there are any crystalline compounds within these clouds, so this can only be used as pointer towards possible minerals in outer space.

2. Samples investigated by probes. Probes have sophisticated analytical equipment on them, probes to comets and asteroids, for example, may be able to identify known or currently unknown mineral speciecs within the makeup of the body.

3. Dust returned from probes to comets, etc (such as the NASA Stardust mission) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_%28spacecraft%29

4. Dust known to originate from outside the Earth's atmosphere collected by high-altitude aircraft or baloons - see brownleeite

Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

Anorthite Brownleeite (TL) Calcite Clinoenstatite Corundum Cubanite

Diamond Diopside Dolomite Enstatite Forsterite Gehlenite

Graphite Hibonite Ice Iron Khamrabaevite Moissanite

Nierite Osbornite Pentlandite Perovskite Pyrrhotite Spinel

28 entries listed. 24 valid minerals. 1 type locality (valid mineral).

Localities in this Region

Outer Space Comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup Comet Wild 2 (Comet 81P) Main Belt Asteroids 24 Themis NGC 6302 (Bug Nebula; Butterfly Nebula)