Chondritic meteorites (chondrites) are some of the oldest rocks in our solar system, forming 4.5 billion years ago. Therefore, their primitive composition means that they offer a window into the ...

Some of the first solid matter to form in the solar system are small beads of rock called chondrules. Cut and polished, they radiate prismatic colors under the microscope.

The enigmatic origins of chondrules—tiny inclusions in most meteorites—may be revealed at last, thanks in part to pristine material returned to Earth from asteroid Ryugu ...

135-year-old meteorite mystery solved? Chondrules may have formed from high-pressure collisions in early solar system Date: July 8, 2013 Source: University of Chicago Summary: A normally staid ...

A new study proposes two early solar system solids — chondrules and calcium-aluminum rich inclusions — formed at the same time. This theory rewrites our current understanding of the early ...

Asteroids may not be planetary building blocks, as many scientists had long assumed, but rather byproducts of the planet-formation process.

Microscopic analyses of chondrites, the oldest rocks in the solar system, are filling in details of what our neighborhood in space was like shortly before the planets formed ...

Using a phase-field model, the team simulated the rapid cooling of molten chondrules in a vacuum-like environment and found that the formation of barred olivine requires a cooling rate exceeding 1 ...

When scientists polish and study a meteorite sample under a microscope, they can identify rare minerals by their color, as well as chondrules and other inclusions.

Chondrules, the mm-scale previously molten droplets found in most meteorites, are among the oldest Solar System solids. Volatile rich olivine reveals that chondrules formed in extremely solid rich ...

The origin of most chondrules (small, previously molten spherules inside meteorites) is shown to be impact jetting; chondrules form from the shock-melted material ejected from a protoplanet on ...

Scientists have a new theory about how chondrules, glass beads that made up some of the solar system's first solids, formed.