Chondrules, the stony, seed-like grains in meteorites, were formed when some event melted rock in the solar nebula. The latest analyses narrow the possible ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of that process.

Next time you wake up and hit the alarm button --- take a breath and know that chondrules are likely what got you here. Vaguely analogous to grains of green Hawaiian beach sand, chondrules are ...

Analysis of samples from asteroid Bennu has revealed objects resembling chondrules, though not identical to those found in meteorites, suggesting greater asteroid diversity than previously understood.

Philip A. Bland, Olivier Alard, Gretchen K. Benedix, Anton T. Kearsley, Olwyn N. Menzies, Lauren E. Watt, Nick W. Rogers, Robert N. Clayton Proceedings of the ...

Billions of years ago, Jupiter’s violent growth transformed the young solar system, smashing icy and rocky bodies together at incredible speeds. These cataclysmic collisions created tiny molten ...

Chondrules are millimeter-sized spherules that dominate primitive meteorites (chondrites) originating from the asteroid belt. The incorporation of chondrules into asteroidal bodies must be an ...

Four and a half billion years ago, Jupiter rapidly grew to its massive size. Its powerful gravitational pull disrupted the orbits of small rocky and icy bodies similar to modern asteroids and comets, ...

A normally staid University of Chicago scientist has stunned many of his colleagues with his radical solution to a 135-year-old mystery in cosmochemistry. “I’m a fairly sober guy. People didn’t know ...

The toaster-sized capsule hit our atmosphere at 12 kilometers per second, enduring temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius during its fiery descent before deploying a parachute to slow its velocity. It ...