All articles tagged with #early solar system
A Hillsborough, New Jersey meteorite—a primitive CM carbonaceous chondrite that fell in 2024—contains hundreds of amino acids, the majority not known to occur naturally on Earth, preserved in salty brines within the asteroid’s minerals. The finding highlights complex abiotic organic chemistry in a water-altered asteroid and underscores the value of rapid recovery to study pristine extraterrestrial material.
James Webb Space Telescope observations of Neptune’s inner moons and dusty rings detect clay minerals that require long-term water–rock interactions, implying these moons expose deep interiors from a past catastrophe. The study supports a scenario in which Triton was captured early, disturbing Neptune’s original moons and leaving the current inner moons to form from the resulting debris.
Far-side Moon rocks imply a gradual decline of asteroid impacts over billions of years, not a single catastrophic bombardment, challenging the late heavy bombardment theory and offering a cleaner record of early Solar System history that informs Earth's ancient environment, aided by China’s Chang’e‑6 samples.
Scientists analyzing the Hillsborough meteorite that crashed into a New Jersey home found evidence it originated from a primitive inner-belt asteroid, likely the Erigone family, containing amino acids and organic compounds and high salt from ancient brines. The findings support the idea that water and the chemical ingredients for life could be delivered to Earth via carbonaceous asteroid fragments.
Scientists analyzing the Hillsborough meteorite fragments recovered from a New Jersey home found a rare CM½ carbonaceous chondrite rich in salts and a diverse suite of extraterrestrial amino acids, offering a pristine snapshot of the early solar system and supporting the idea that meteorites helped deliver organic matter to Earth; the sample’s fragility and rapid containment preserved its original composition for study, with researchers comparing it to Bennu and Ryugu samples to understand water–organic interactions in the early solar system.
A 2026 study of Northwest Africa 12774, an angrite meteorite, argues its unusually aluminium-rich clinopyroxene records formation under very high pressure (at least ~17.5 kilobars) inside a large parent body—potentially Moon-sized or larger—suggesting a planetary embryo once orbited the young Sun and may have vanished in a catastrophic collision while Earth was still forming. The interpretation does not reveal an orbit or Earth impact and does not prove all angrites come from such worlds; still, it shows meteorites can preserve mineral memories of large, long-gone planetary bodies.
Analysis of the 2019 Sahara meteorite NWA 12774, an angrite, yields formation pressures of at least 17.5 kilobars, suggesting it formed in a large, differentiated body rather than a small asteroid. If valid, this implies a Moon-sized (or larger) parent world that formed early in the solar system and was destroyed in a giant collision, leaving behind a chemical fingerprint. The claim is not yet consensus and cannot map the parent body's orbit or full history, but it reshapes ideas about vanished worlds in our solar system.
A 2025 Nature Astronomy study using the orbits of Jovian moons Amalthea and Thebe suggests Jupiter was about 2–2.5× its current size and had a magnetic field roughly 50× stronger shortly after the solar system formed (about 3.8 million years in). The stronger early convection would have produced a much larger magnetosphere; the authors infer these conditions from angular-momentum constraints rather than modeling formation directly. The article notes that a separate, older estimate of Jupiter’s current contraction rate (~2 cm/year) exists but is not measured by this study. This finding provides a benchmark for constraining the solar system’s early history.
A fist-sized Sahara meteorite called NWA 12774 is an angrite whose chemistry, analyzed with a new pressure-based barometer, implies it formed inside a large parent body—potentially Moon-sized—under high pressure and was destroyed during the solar system’s infancy. Its silica-poor composition points to a formation pathway different from Earth or Mars. If correct, this would be evidence for a vanished protoplanet whose debris helped seed the early planets; further independent checks on similar meteorites are needed to confirm the giant-parent picture.
A study of the 2019-found NWA 12774 angrite meteorite uses microprobe analyses and geobarometry to argue its parent body was a large planetary embryo. Estimated to have had a radius from about 1,000 km up to roughly 3,300 km (Mars-sized at the high end), this suggests a once-present world that shattered or was dispersed, with fragments landing on Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System. The work is published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Scientists analyze a roughly one-pound angrite meteorite found in the Sahara (NWA 12774) and argue it formed on a large parent body billions of years ago, perhaps 1,118–2,050 miles in diameter. The mineral clinopyroxene and unusually preserved crystal edges suggest formation under extreme pressure on a very large body, implying a distinct early planetary formation path separate from Earth and Mars. Fragments from that lost world likely scattered across the solar system and eventually landed on Earth, hinting there may be other ancient protoplanets waiting to be discovered.
A rare Sahara meteorite, NWA 12774, is identified as an angrite whose unusual chemistry and formation under extreme pressures imply its parent body was a Moon-sized protoplanet, offering the first definitive evidence of a long-lost world that formed early in the solar system.
An Australian man in Maryborough, Victoria, prospecting for gold with a metal detector found a rock that resisted all attempts to break it. It was later identified by Museums Victoria as the Maryborough meteorite, an H5 ordinary chondrite containing chondrules from the early solar system, formed about 4.6 billion years ago and likely landed on Earth 100–1,000 years ago; the meteorite is now housed in Museums Victoria.
Astronomers have observed the earliest stages of planet formation around the young star HOPS-315 using JWST and ALMA, capturing the formation of solid minerals close to the star, which marks the beginning of rocky planet development and provides new insights into the initial steps of planetary system creation.
A study from the University of Bern shows that Earth's initial chemical composition was complete within three million years of formation, suggesting that essential life ingredients like water and organic compounds were likely delivered by a late impact with a water-rich body, supporting the Giant Impact Hypothesis and providing insights into the origins of life and planetary habitability.