In the US, lightning struck a tree and created a new mineral.

May 4, 2023

It is something between terrestrial and space rocks. Inside the fulgurite, they found crystalline phosphorus of an unusual shape. These are rare fragments of the phosphorus material CaHPO3 - it is not a phosphate, but it is not a phosphide either. It turned out that the new mineral contains calcium phosphite. It is likely that with prolonged heating, the discovered material will turn into a mineral that is present in meteorites.