Nope - it's just a tiny chunk of basalt.

Yesterday an international group of researchers announced their discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explaining that the meteorite was made from a form of basalt that had never before been encountered in Earth - or in a meteorite. The image you see above was captured on Earth: It's part of a basalt formation on the Scottish island of Staffa, photographed by Jim Richardson for National Geographic. Here is another example of the self-assembling architecture of basalt formations, from Turkey:

The tiny meteorite discovered in Antarctica is only 100–200 micrometers in diameter - so small that it doesn't suffer the same kinds of damage that a larger meteorite might as it hits the atmosphere. So the micrometeorite gives scientists a more accurate picture of the crusts of local planets and asteroids that likely spawned the space-going rock. The researchers report:

This micrometeorite is unlike any other basalt known in the solar system as revealed by isotopic data, mineral chemistry, and trace element abundances. The discovery of a new basaltic asteroidal surface expands the solar system inventory of planetary crusts . . .

It's likely that this basalt came from formations on other planets that look like these otherworldly formations on Earth. Basalt on Earth is often released in liquified form during volcanic eruptions. If it hardens rapidly enough, it forms into regular shapes that look like human-made columns and tiles. Here you can see that effect in Ireland:

Basalt is already associated with extraterrestrials - at least, in pop culture. The aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind arrive in ships that hover over Devil's Tower in Wyoming, a huge basalt formation.

Oil companies currently pump CO2 down into their reservoirs as a way of forcing more oil up to the surface. The process works, but it's on a small scale, and some scientists worry that the carbon dioxide won't stay put — in the case of an earthquake or future drilling, it could come bubbling right back up into the atmosphere.

But David Goldberg and his team at Columbia have figured out a better way — pump the CO2 down beneath 9,000 feet of water and then into volcanic basalts. There the greenhouse gas reacts with the rock, turning into carbonate (aka limestone, aka chalk) so even if there is an earthquake there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Of course getting any material pumped into rock close to two miles below the surface of the ocean could be tough, but the researchers are targeting a site in the Pacific Ocean offshore of Oregon and Washington that's filled with vast expanses of basalt. They're going to try some land-based trials later this year, but Goldberg says things would go a lot faster if the US cared to up the ante by throwing a little more cash towards carbon sequestration research. From EurekAlert:

The United States currently spends about $40 million a year studying carbon sequestration, but nearly all of that goes to land-based research. "Forty million is about the opening-day box office for Finding Nemo," said Goldberg. "We need policy change now, to energize research beyond our coastlines."

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences via EurekAlert