From the start, the solar system chose fire over ice to build its first bodies

When the solar system first took up the task of building solid bodies—such as planets, moons and protoplanets—it basically had a choice between two ingredients: heat-forged chondrules, which were millimeter-sized bits of rock, and matrix, a fine-grained, cold dust loaded with water ice and organic molecules. And from the get-go, the solar system chose fire.

Read it at Phys.org ↗

← Front page