Since pearls are made mostly of calcium carbonate, the acid found in vinegar, known as acetic acid, will definitely dissolve one over a period of time. The same dissolution would occur if an egg were placed in a glass of vinegar and left to sit - the egg shell would disintegrate. Of course, the speed as which the pearl dissolves will depend on the concentration of the acid and the pearl's overall size. The reaction produces calcium acetate, water and carbon dioxide, summarized below:


More Pearly Facts:

 Mollusks actually create pearls as a form of protection from foreign particles, sand and parasites. Natural pearls, though, are very rare in modern times due to a decline in mollusks ...

The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Tunguska River, in where is now Russia. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 mi) by a stony asteroid that is believed to have burst in the air rather than hitting the surface.

Since the 1908 explosion, there have been an estimated 1,000 scholarly papers (mainly in Russian) published on the Tunguska explosion. In 2013, a team of researchers led by Victor Kvasnytsya of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine published analysis results of micro-samples from a peat bog near the blast epicenter showing fragments that may be of meteoric origin.

Estimates of the energy of the blast range from as low as three to as high as 30 megatons of TNT. The energy of th ...