  When a space body enters Earth's atmosphere, its surface is exposed to high
pressure and temperatures. The airflow tears off small droplets from the
meteoroid forming a cloud of meteorite dust. Can new materials be synthesized
in these unique conditions (high temperature, pressure, gaseous atmosphere,
catalysts)? As a rule, meteoritic dust dissipates in the atmosphere without a
trace or is mixed with terrestrial soil. The Chelyabinsk superbolide, the
biggest in the 21st century, which exploded on February 15, 2013 above snowy
fields of the Southern Urals, was an exception. Two new types of materials were
found during an in-depth study: thread-like structures that were not previously
associated with meteorite falls and unique carbon crystals with a size of
several micrometers that were not observed before. The nature of formation of
thread-like structures is fully similar to the nature of formation of Pele's
hair during eruptions of terrestrial volcanos. Multiple twin growth mechanism
of formation of closed shell graphite microcrystals was proposed based on DFT
and classical/ab initio MD simulations. It was found that among several
possible embryo carbon nanoclusters the C60 fullerene and
polyhexacyclooctadecane -C18H12- may be the main suspects responsible for the
formation of closed shell quasi-spherical and hexagonal rod graphite
microcrystals.
