The shocking discovery of ceramic chips in meteorites means that there have been wild temperature fluctuations within the early photo voltaic system

Meteorites are excellent windows into the early formation of the solar system. Many were formed in those early days and, unlike rocks on Earth, most have not been affected by billions of years of tectonic activity that wipes away their original structure. Recently, a team led by Nicolas Dauphas and Justin Hu from the University of Chicago (UC) found that the formation process for many of these meteorites was much more violent than previously thought.

Typical models for the early formation of the solar system have the sun start out hot and then gradually cool down with age. This model does not match the findings data of the paper recently accepted for Science Advances.

UT Q&A session discussion of the origins of some meteorites

In it, the team carefully examines some ceramic chips that were present in a meteorite sample. It is commonly believed that these ceramics are even older than the surrounding meteorite itself and likely formed in the first 100,000 years of the solar system. This is not the first time scientists have tried to analyze this ceramic, knowing that it is key to understanding the early solar system.

So far, however, efforts have been hampered by technology constraints, and if there is one thing that engineering is very good at, it is overcoming technology constraints. UC’s research team has actually invented an entirely new, highly specialized cleaning system to analyze isotopes found in the ceramic chips of meteorites.

Meteorites do not only come from the early solar system – some, like this meteorite “Black Beauty”, come from Mars and have a completely different chemical composition than those investigated by the UC team.
Photo credit: NASA

The new tool showed that the isotopes present in the ceramic chips must have been formed at extremely high temperatures (1,300 ° C) over extremely long periods of time (tens of thousands of years). In short, the environmental conditions required to manufacture this early-stage ceramic were not the same as in the current early models of the solar system.

Findings like this fit into a recent narrative about the formation of the solar system that is taking shape. Scientists have already received some data suggesting a much more violent early solar period, but the new data from the analysis of the ceramics add a new layer of evidence to the more violent models of the early formation of the solar system.

Some meteorites are embedded in the earth, like this “fossil meteorite”.
Photo credits – Birger Schmitz

This formation affects not only meteorites, but also planetary formation processes such as those of the Earth, Mars and Venus. Insight into early models of the formation of the solar system could lead to a better understanding of why only one of the three main planetary planets is considered habitable, and other secrets of planet formation long eluded scientists.

Close-up of the meteorite and associated ceramic chips used in the UC study.
Photo credit: Hu et al. / University of Chicago

Understanding the composition of meteorites is only a small part of this effort, however. With new technology and growing evidence in the form of new data, scientists will one day get a much more complete and accurate picture of the early days of our solar system.

Learn more:
UC: Ceramic chips in meteorites suggest wild days in the early solar system
Advances in Science: Warming events in the nascent solar system, recorded by isotope fractionation of rare earth elements in refractory inclusions
Future: Ceramic in meteorites turns the theory of the early solar system on its head

Mission statement:
Artistic conception of the early solar system.
Photo credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Like this:

To like Loading…