William sent in a link https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mystery-deepens-over-king-tutankhamun-s-alien-gass-after-stunning-discovery/ar-AA24YYAI … pieces of yellow glass in gold jewellery inside the tomb of Tutankhamun are known to come from the desert in SE Egypt or in neighbouring Libya. The yellow glass is spread over a wide area and has an origin in a large meteor or small asteroid. A new study following another analysis of the glass has revealed a tiny sliver of zircon. Zircons are a favoured tool at the moment, used to date ancient rocks and inclusions. The sliver of zircon is described as the width of a strand of human hair. It has a shape that is compared to a tree like, or branching structure – known as dendritic texture. From the zircon the researchers, it is claimed, were able to extract the temperature when the yellow glass was formed. It came out at 4082 degrees – an extraordinary high temperature. A sequence of melting and rapid solidification had occurred. In recent years it had become feasible to associate the yellow glass with an airburst event – generating extreme heat but without leaving a crater. Several potential sites for a crater have been identified in the past but none survived scrutiny on the ground. Hence, the airburst popularity. It seems this new research puts that idea to bed. The 4082 degrees, it is thought, is far too high for an airburst event. They must look again for an impact crater. However, like Hammam, the explosion specialists may not have taken account of a plasma supercharge, or surge, during the airburst event. We shall have to wait and see what comes of this new discovery. It is certainly spectacular and in the end may work in favour of airburst supporters. Particularly ones in the low to mid atmosphere. Chelyabinsk is mentioned, from 2013, but that was high in the atmosphere, yet produced a burst of light that rivalled the Sun in brightness. A lot of energy was dispersed – but it was in the upper atmosphere.
For the present an airburst is excluded as the zircon shows four times the amount of energy it is thought an airburst event produces. No mention of Gunther Klectetschka and his link on the Forum article does not seem to work anymore. Perhaps his paper has been redacted. However, some other links do not work as well so it may well be an artifact of placing the post on the forum. The Gunter Klectetschka paper is at https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi-10.14293.ACI.2025.0006 … it is the Cosmic Tusk link that doesn’t work. In fact you might have a problem with that one too but this one worked https://doi.org/10.14293/aci.2025.0006 …
The same story is at https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15864403/ … and https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-solve-mystery-of-yellow-egyptian-desert-glass-11721232 … and various other newspapers online. It has even reached The Conversation and they have posted more or less the same thing at https://theconversation.com/how-we-solved-the-mystery-of-libyan-desert-glass-117253 … which is not necessarily unusual when an important study is published but the press release seems to have hit a button. Possibly because it mentions the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun.
We also have another impact. This time in Australia, and many moons ago. Raining gold nuggets. See https://phys.org/news/2026-06-meteorite-impact-gold-western-australia.html … which concerns a rain of gold falling on western Australia from an impact in the Eastern Goldfields of western Australia. Millions of years ago, obviously. Glass from the explosion as well as shredded rock fragments were found as well as small nuggets of gold.