(ORDO NEWS) — In the new study, scientists at the University of Rochester, USA, were able to use the magnetic properties of asteroids for the first time to establish the time boundaries of the era when carbonaceous chondrites – asteroids rich in water and amino acids – first arrived in the inner solar system. This study will help scientists gain a deeper understanding of the origins of the solar system and planets, as well as other planetary systems in the galaxy.
In a new study, a team led by John Tarduno of the University of Rochester studied the magnetic properties of minerals in the Allende meteorite, which fell to Earth in Mexico in 1969. The Allende meteorite is the largest meteorite in the carbonaceous chondrite class and contains minerals called calcium-aluminum. inclusions – which are supposedly the very first solid formations in the solar system. It is one of the most extensively studied meteorites and has been considered for decades a classic example of a meteorite, which is a fragment of an asteroid parent body.
Recently, some scientists have proposed a controversial hypothesis that the magnetism of Allende-type carbon chondrites may be related to a magnetic dynamo, similar to the Earth’s magnetic dynamo. In their work, Tarduno and his colleagues find that the magnetic signals previously misunderstood by other researchers as signals from the asteroid’s magnetic core are in fact related to Allende’s unusual magnetic minerals.
Having resolved this paradox, Tarduno and his theoretical colleagues were able to further establish with the help of models that the reason for the magnetization of bodies in the early Solar System, including carbonaceous chondrites, was the solar wind that bends around these bodies (see photo).
Using the results of their simulations, the researchers found that the parent asteroids of meteorites of the carbonaceous chondrite class arrived in the Asteroid Belt from the outer solar system about 4.562 billion years ago, that is, during only the first five million of the existence of the solar system.
Tarduno says these results support the so-called Grand Tack hypothesis, which describes the motion of Jupiter and other planets in the solar system. Previously, scientists believed that planets and other planetary bodies were formed from gas and dust immediately “in their place”, but today astronomers understand that the gravitational forces of the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, could determine the formation and migration of planetary bodies and asteroids. According to the large deflection hypothesis, the asteroids were first divided into two groups by gravitational forces acting from Jupiter, the further migration of which led to mixing of the asteroid bodies.
The research is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment; first author Timothy O “Brien.
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