Hypatia was discovered in December 1996 by Aly A. Barakat at 25°20′N 25°30′E / 25.333°N 25.500°E / 25.333; 25.500, directly in proximity to a dark, slag-like glassy material that was interpreted to be a form of Libyan desert glass.
[8] Tests done in South Africa by researchers Jan Kramers and Georgy Belyanin of the University of Johannesburg show that Hypatia contains microscopic diamonds.
Further speculation from comparative summary statistical associations support that Hypatia is a relict fragment of the hypothetical impacting body assumed to have produced the chemically-dissimilar Libyan desert glass.
[9] Other observations supporting non-terrestrial origin for the Hypatia samples include ratios of silicon to carbon anti-correlated to terrestrial averages, or those of major planets like Mars or Venus.
[10] In 2022, Kramers and Andreoli proposed the hypothesis that the Hypatia stone represents the first evidence on Earth of a type Ia supernova explosion.