A new Southwest Research Institute-led study proposes a solution to a longstanding puzzle in planetary science: What caused the concentration, assembly, and preservation of millimeter-sized, spherical mineral grains within the parent bodies of the most common meteorites? The work is published in the journal Science Advances.
Chondritic asteroids are ancient bodies that orbit the sun, while a chondrite meteorite is a rocky fragment that falls to Earth. Both contain primitive materials. Chondrite meteorites are largely made of chondrules—tiny, once-molten droplets of rock—embedded in a fine-grained matrix.
“While several mechanisms may have created the chondrules themselves, I have always been surprised by how homogeneous the chondritic asteroids seem to be,” said SwRI’s Hal L...
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