A team of researchers from the University of Chicago has focused on the study of meteorites enclosing small silicate balls. These elements could allow us to learn more about the origin of the formation of the Solar System.
The history of the Solar System could be illuminated by simple pieces of silicate. A study published on 1er December in the review Science Advances demonstrates that small silicate beads called chondres and contained in certain types of meteorites could be a part of the cosmic puzzle to understand the formation of the Solar System. The meteorites, observed by researchers at the universities of Chicago and Washington and Carnegie Institution for Science, are called chondrites and have undergone a so-called isotopic analysis allowing their composition and age to be determined, thus providing researchers with visibility into the history of the formation of the planets.
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Chondrites, ancient meteorites at the dawn of the Solar System
Chondrites are the most common meteorites on Earth. It is estimated that ordinary chondrites, mainly composed of rock, represent 92% of falling cars on the planet over the course of a year. The first introductory sentence of the study establishes the importance of these meteorites: “ chondrites are primitive meteorites which formed between 2 and 3 million years after the birth of the Solar System and could be at the origin of the formation of certain telluric bodies ”.
Because it is indeed there that lies the importance of the analysis of these meteorites, which could have played a capital role in the creation of certain planets of the solar system. These bodies would have formed during the young years of the Sun, within his protoplanetary disc. The latter, composed of gas and dust orbiting a star, is the cradle of many elements of the Solar System, including early meteorites. Teams of scientists from the University of Chicago are more specifically interested in these tiny tiny beads contained in the heart of chondrites. These small elements, called chondrules, are the subject of the attention of researchers since many years.
Silicate to understand the solar system
The chondrules contained in these primitive meteorites are small silicate spheres, varying in size between 0.1 and 3 millimeters. If the researchers are aware of certain facts surrounding the conditions of formation of chondrules, their origin is still uncertain. Their spherical shape comes from a crystallization in weightlessness. The chondrules studied also demonstrated exposure to high temperatures, 1,000 degrees Kelvin (ie 727 ° C) before a rapid drop in temperatures, thus inducing this crystallization.
Several theories exist concerning the origin of this phenomenon, but one of them particularly holds the attention of researchers: the collision of objects such as planetoids, bodies with characteristics similar to those of planets, but of size and mass lower. The breath emitted by the impact of such celestial objects would thus have caused the rise then the sudden fall in temperatures, in fact creating the chondrites, themselves agglomerating into chondrites.
The geologists and cosmologists should continue to study these primitive meteorites in order to learn more about the origins of the Solar System. The doctor in cosmochemistry Timo Hopp, of the University of Chicago, thus declared in an article published on the site Phys.Org : ” we know other things have happened, that’s only part of the story. But this is an additional lead in the study of the formation of the planets of the Solar System. “.
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