Scientists Discover Kryptonite

A new mineral discovered in Serbia has a chemical makeup almost identical to that given for the fictional mineral kryptonite in the film Superman Returns.

In the movie, and the DC Comics comic-book series on which it’s based, kryptonite is an alien mineral — usually a bright, glowing green — that saps Superman’s strength whenever he gets too close to it.

In real life, the mineral is a sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide — a hard, white mineral with individual crystals no larger than five microns across. It doesn’t glow green, although it reported fluoresces pink-orange under ultraviolet light. It was discovered by geologists who work for Rio Tinto, the world’s third-largest mining company, who were exploring for borates in Serbia.

Unable to identify the mineral, the geologists sent a sample to the Natural History Museum in London, who, with the help of Canada’s National Research Council, mapped out the chemical structure.

It was only after the identification was complete that the similarity to the fictional material was discovered.

“Towards the end of my research, I searched the Web using the mineral’s chemical formula — sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide — and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film Superman Returns,” Dr. Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at the Natural History Museum, said in a statement.

“The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film), and is white rather than green but, in all other repsects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite,” he concluded.

Sadly for comic fans, the mineral cannot actually be named kryptonite. The mineral in the fictional series was named after the planet Krypton, but there is also an element on the periodic table called krypton. According to the rules of the International Mineralogical Association, which governs the naming of all new minerals, naming the mineral “kryptonite” would imply that it contains krypton, which it does not. The mineral has been named jadarite after the area where it was discovered. The first scientific description of it will appear in the European Journal of Mineralogy later this year.

Posted: April 30, 2007

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