Ancient meteorites

[Waspie_Dwarf]

New clues to the early Solar System from ancient meteorites

Washington, DC — In order to understand Earth's earliest history--its formation from Solar System material into the present-day layering of metal core and mantle, and crust--scientists look to meteorites. New research from a team including Carnegie's Doug Rumble and Liping Qin focuses on one particularly old type of meteorite called diogenites. These samples were examined using an array of techniques, including precise analysis of certain elements for important clues to some of the Solar System's earliest chemical processing. Their work is published online July 22 by Nature Geoscience.

At some point after terrestrial planets or large bodies accreted from surrounding Solar System material, they differentiate into a metallic core, asilicate mantle, and a crust. This involved a great deal of heating. The sources of this heat are the decay of short-lived radioisotopes, the energy conversion that occurs when dense metals are physically separated from lighter silicate, and the impact of large objects. Studies indicate that the Earth's and Moon's mantles may have formed more than 4.4 billion years ago, and Mars's more than 4.5 billion years ago.

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[Ashotep]

I think it is great that we are learning so much about the universe and solar system and how it was formed. Wish they could put his information to practical use.