Related papers: Meteorites and Planet Formation
Understanding the origin of comets requires knowledge of how the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas 4.567 Gyr ago. Here, a review is presented of how the remnants of this formation process, meteorites and to a lesser extent…
Meteorites, and in particular primitive meteorites (chondrites), are irreplaceable probes of the solar protoplanetary disk. We review their essential properties and endeavour to place them in astrophysical context. The earliest solar system…
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
Chondritic meteorites constitute the most ancient rock record available in the laboratory to study the formation of the solar system and its planets. Detailed investigations of their mineralogy, petrography, chemistry and isotopic…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…
The detection of exoplanets and accretion disks around newborn stars has spawned new ideas and models of how our Solar System formed and evolved. Meteorites as probes of geologic deep time can provide ground truth to these models. In…
The physical composition and structure of meteoroids gives us insight into the formation processes of their parent asteroids and comets. The strength of and fundamental grain sizes in meteoroids tell us about the environment in which small…
The solar system started to form about 4.56 Gyr ago and despite the long intervening time span, there still exist several clues about its formation. The three major sources for this information are meteorites, the present solar system…
Chemical and chronological information preserved in meteorites permits the reconstruction of events and processes in the solar nebula from the formation of the first solids to the accretion of planetary bodies and their subsequent…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
Advances in the discovery and characterization of asteroids over the past decade have revealed an unanticipated underlying structure that points to a dramatic early history of the inner Solar System. The asteroids in the main asteroid belt…
Aspects of our Solar System's formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state…
Meteorites, which are remnants of solar system formation, provide a direct glimpse into the dynamics and evolution of a young stellar object (YSO), namely our Sun. Much of our knowledge about the astrophysical context of the birth of the…
Comets hold answers to mysteries of the Solar System by recording presolar history, the initial states of planet formation and prebiotic organics and volatiles to the early Earth. Analysis of returned samples from a comet nucleus will…
The initial conditions, physics, and outcome of planet formation are now constrained by detailed observations of protoplanetary disks, laboratory experiments, and the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planetary systems. These…
The most abundant components of primitive meteorites (chondrites) are millimeter-sized glassy spherical chondrules formed by transient melting events in the solar protoplanetary disk. Using Pb-Pb dates of 22 individual chondrules, we show…
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
The Solar System hosts the most studied and best understood major and minor planetary bodies - and the only extraterrestrial bodies to have been visited by spacecraft. The Solar System therefore provides important constraints on both the…
Outgassing is a central process during the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets and their atmospheres both within and beyond the solar system. Although terrestrial planets' early atmospheres likely form via outgassing during…