Solar system mystery solved
A Hubble image of the Orion nebula, where thousands of stars are forming. Young stars are circled by protostellar desks, which eject jets of material. Chondrules may form in these jets. Image: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto, Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team New research from The Australian National University has answered a decades old cosmic conundrum on how ‘chondrules’ – tiny particles found within meteorites – could have formed in extreme heat, especially when the meteorite structure surrounding them remained cold.Chondrules are spherical particles of molten material found in meteorites but their origins have long been a mystery. No longer than about 1mm in diameter, they melted at temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Celsius, while the cooler materials surrounding them only experienced temperatures of a few hundred degrees Celsius.ANU researchers Dr Raquel Salmeron from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Dr Trevor Ireland from the Research School of...