Lund: Millimetre-Sized Stones Formed Our Planet

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Lund: Millimetre-Sized Stones Formed Our Planet

Post by bystander » Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:39 pm

Millimetre-Sized Stones Formed Our Planet
Lund University, Sweden | 2015 Apr 17
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Researchers can now explain how asteroids are formed. According to a new study led by Lund University in Sweden, our own planet also has its origins in the same process, a cosmic ocean of millimetre-sized particles that orbited the young sun.

Fragments of asteroids regularly land on Earth as meteorites. If you examine such a find, you can see that it comprises millimetre-sized round stones, known as chondrules. These small particles are believed to be the original building blocks of the solar system. However, the research community has not previously been able to explain how the chondrules formed asteroids. A new study shows that asteroids were formed by capturing chondrules with the help of gravitational force.

“The chondrules are of exactly the right size to be slowed down by the gas that orbited the young sun, and they could then be captured by the asteroids’ gravity”, says Dr Anders Johansen, an astronomy researcher at Lund University.

”This causes them to fall down and accumulate like sand piling up in a sandstorm”, adds co-author Mordecai-Mark Mac Low from the American Museum of Natural History. ...

Planet Formation Relied on Sweeping up of Small Glassy Beads
American Museum of Natural History | 2015 Apr 17

Growth of asteroids, planetary embryos, and Kuiper belt objects by chondrule accretion - Anders Johansen et al
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