It was discovered by researchers of the Johnson Space Center in Houston while analyzing the Pi Puppid particle shower of the comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup.
[4] The particles were collected from the stratosphere over south-western US in April 2003 using an ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft of NASA.
The team of researchers from US, Germany and Japan was led by NASA scientist Keiko Nakamura-Messenger.
[5][6] To determine the mineral's origin and examine other dust materials, a new transmission electron microscope was installed in 2005 at Johnson Space Center.
[8] The NASA scientists named the mineral after Donald E. Brownlee, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle, because of his pioneering research on interplanetary dust particles.