Losttown is an iron meteorite (IID) found in Georgia, in 1868.
This specimen exhibits excellent Widmanstätten pattern (named for Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstätten, director of the Austrian Imperial Porcelain Works, in 1808), created by the interlocking crystal structure of two nickel-iron alloys.
Most iron meteorites are believed to originate in the cores of large asteroids. When these asteroidal cores were exposed to the cold and vacuum of space as the result of cosmic collisions, the molten metal they comprised cooled over millions of years, resulting in the intergrown metallic lamellae seen here.
Photo by L. Garvie and © ASU/CMS.
