Chondrules are composed mostly of the silicate minerals olivine and pyroxene (pie-ROX-een), rocks that are common in the Earth's upper mantle.

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 ...

“Chondrules are everywhere,” says Fred Ciesla, a planetary scientist at the University of Chicago. Even so, scientists have been unable to agree on how they formed for almost two centuries.

They differ in that actual chondrules contain no isotopic anomalies, whereas the simulated shock-wave chondrules do. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different masses from one another.

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 ...

Physical Properties of Chondrules in Different Chondrite Groups: Implications for Multiple Melting Events in Dusty Environments. Alan E. Rubin in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, ...

Still, such oblique impacts "produce more jetted materials, more chondrules," he added. The scientists detailed their findings in the Jan. 15 issue of the journal Nature. Follow us @Spacedotcom ...

Chondrules are such dominant features of these meteorites that they are called chondrites, and they account for 86 percent of meteorites that have been found on Earth. Their origin, however ...

A new view of the solar system's early days proposes that the first two kinds of solid materials — the precursors of space rocks and ultimately planets — both formed at the same time.

These chondrules are considered time capsules from the early solar system, and barred olivine is a rare mineral texture not seen in Earth rocks. The study is published in Science Advances.

Then they studied individual chondrules from two chondritic meteorites, the Allende meteorite that fell in Mexico in 1969 and the Karoonda meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1930. These meteorites ...

Chondrules are visible as round objects in this image of a polished thin section made from the Bishunpur meteorite from India. The dark grains are iron-poor olivine crystals.