Are there minerals which are not been found on earth but which are still possible to exist?

Question

On Earth we find many kind of minerals, a lot of them are silicates. How much different kind of minerals would there be on Earth?But are there Fe minerals found in meteorites which do no occur on Earth. And how many combinations of metals/elements are possible to form minerals which doesn't exist on Earth. And what could be the reason that they don't exist on Earth?

Answer 1

On Earth we are discovering new minerals frequently. It's a little bit like biologists looking for new species, where there is so much territory to explore and the minerals can be so small that we haven't found all of them yet. In terms of numbers, there are over 5000 minerals known so far, but they are still being discovered. It's unknown how many more we will find.

There are some minerals found on meteorites that don't occur on Earth, which are mostly iron-based. They occur due to meteorite impacts in meteorites that have a very high iron content. On Earth, iron content is relatively low at the surface, so the physical and chemical conditions for these minerals' formation haven't occurred. In general, mineral formation is restricted by the pressure, temperature, composition and timescales involved in their growth. Earth was formed out of the same material that meteorites in our solar system are made of, so compositionally there are (on average) not vast amounts of difference. Outside of our solar system, it is hard to say what compositions may exist. There may potentially be new elements that we don't know about yet. For this reason, it is hard to estimate how many possible minerals may exist outside of Earth, but it is certain that such minerals do exist.