Chaotic early solar system collisions resembled 'Asteroids' arcade game:
Nearly 30 years later, a new analysis of that same Peekskill meteorite and 17 others by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has led to a new hypothesis about how asteroids formed during the early years of the solar system.
The meteorites studied in the research originated from asteroids and serve as natural samples of the space rocks. They indicate that the asteroids formed though violent bombardment and subsequent reassembly, a finding that runs counter to the prevailing idea that the young solar system was a peaceful place.
The study was published in print Dec.1 in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
The research began when co-author Nick Dygert was a postdoctoral fellow at UT's Jackson School of Geosciences studying terrestrial rocks using a method that could measure the cooling rates of rocks from very high temperatures, up to 1,400 degrees Celsius.
Dygert, now an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, realized that this method -- called a rare earth element (REE)-in-two-pyroxene thermometer -- could work for space rocks, too.
"This is a really powerful new technique for using geochemistry to understand geophysical processes, and no one had used it to measure meteorites yet," Dygert said.
Since the 1970s, scientists have been measuring minerals in meteorites to figure out how they formed. The work suggested that meteorites cooled very slowly from the outside inward in layers. This "onion shell model" is consistent with a relatively peaceful young solar system where chunks of rock orbited unhindered. But those studies were only capable of measuring cooling rates from temperatures near about 500 degrees Celsius.
When Dygert and Michael Lucas, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Tennessee who led the work, applied the REE-in-two-pyroxene method, with its much higher sensitivity to peak temperature, they found unexpected results. From around 900 degrees Celsius down to 500 degrees Celsius, cooling rates were 1,000 to 1 million times faster than at lower temperatures.
How could these two very different cooling rates be reconciled?
The scientists proposed that asteroids formed in stages. If the early solar system was, much like the old Atari game "Asteroids," rife with bombardment, large rocks would have been smashed to bits. Those smaller pieces would have cooled quickly. Afterward, when the small pieces reassembled into larger asteroids we see today, cooling rates would have slowed.
Journal Reference:
Redirecting, (DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2020.09.010)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @04:55AM (3 children)
I love rocks, but the Asteroids analogy ruined it for me. A car analogy would have been vastly superior.
Go for it, APK. Let it rip. This one's all yours.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday November 08 2021, @03:18PM (2 children)
Car analogy? Okay, the early solar system had a bad case of road rage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @03:51PM (1 child)
How about this: the early solar system was like a bunch of Teslas passing by emergency vehicles on the side of the road.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 09 2021, @03:16AM
Win
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @04:59AM (1 child)
No. No it didn't.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @05:03AM
Maybe a game of the Bullet Hell genre?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @05:32AM (2 children)
... says who? Billions of asteroids collided with each other to form planetoids. Jupiter migrated from a close orbit to a far orbit, taking the other giant planets with it and probably tossing a whole planet completely out of the Solar System. A Mars-sized blob of rock knocked the Moon out of the Earth, another one hit Venus hard enough that it spins backwards now, and a probably even bigger one hit Uranus so hard it tipped over on its side. Most of the planets were molten for millions of years because of all the heat from the collisions.
If this is peaceful, I'd hate to see violent!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @11:14PM
"even bigger one hit Uranus so hard it tipped over on its side". I hate it when that happens. Also, TMI
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Tuesday November 09 2021, @06:05AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 09 2021, @03:18PM (2 children)
Asteroids that left the solar system re-entered it on the opposite site?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 09 2021, @03:45PM (1 child)
Seeing how integers are a subset of real numbers, I'd say your sig. is wrong. The numbers you can count with ARE real numbers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 09 2021, @04:20PM
Hint: There's a definitive article in the sig that drastically affects the meaning, and which you are missing.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.