Jupiter has a new birthday thanks to raindrops preserved in asteroids. These raindrops, known as chondrules, have allowed a team of scientists to accurately date the origin of Jupiter’s formation for the very first time.
The new study, published in Scientific Reports, helps answer two important questions about our solar system: when did Jupiter become the giant we know today and how can chondrules tell us more about planet formation. By using advanced computer models, scientists recreated the processes around Jupiter’s birth and learned how these processes created chondrules.
“When planetesimals collided with each other, water instantly vaporized into expanded steam. This acted like tiny explosions and broke apart the molten silicate rock into tiny droplets we see in meteorites today,” said Sin-iti Sirono, co-author and professor at Nagoya University, in a press release.
Dating Jupiter’s Creation
Scientists have determined that Jupiter became a planet around 4.5 billion years ago, about 1.8 million years after the creation of our solar system. They studied chondrules preserved in meteorites that made their way to Earth to pinpoint this date.
As Jupiter grew to its massive size, so did its gravitational force. The stronger the force became, the more objects it disrupted. Some of these objects included small rocky and icy bodies orbiting around the planet, also known as planetesimals. As these objects’ orbit was disrupted, they would crash and smash into each other, causing them to explode and melt on impact.
These melted droplets of molten rock would float through space until landing on a passing meteorite. Now, when scientists find pieces of meteorites on Earth, they can use these preserved droplets – the chondrules – to help date planetary events.
Read More: Earth Formed 4.54 Billion Years Ago – How Do Scientists Know?
How Do You Date Ancient Raindrops?
Dating chondrules is a very difficult and tedious process. Each chondrule is sphere-shaped and measures only 0.1 to 2 millimeters wide. They are also only available to study if a meteorite containing chondrules happens to enter Earth’s atmosphere intact.
Chondrules can tell us how old a planet may be thanks to their size and temperature. By analyzing the chondrules, researchers can estimate how much water the exploding planetesimals contained and use that data for radioactive isotope dating methods.
For this particular study, computer models were used to simulate the creation of Jupiter and its resulting chondrules. To do this, researchers simulated how Jupiter’s growth into a giant planet would’ve caused massive gravity shifts that made rocky and water-rich planetesimals collide.
“We compared the characteristics and abundance of simulated chondrules to meteorite data and found that the model spontaneously generated realistic chondrules. The model also shows that chondrule production coincides with Jupiter’s intense accumulation of nebular gas to reach its massive size,” said Diego Turrini, co-author and senior researcher at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, in the press release. “As meteorite data tells us that peak chondrule formation took place 1.8 million years after the solar system began, this is also the time at which Jupiter was born.”
The Future of Studying Planet Formation
Although the research team has learned more about Jupiter’s role in our solar system, there are still many questions left to be answered. Many meteorites containing chondrules have fallen to Earth, and these chondrules show a significant range in age that suggests they all didn’t come from the formation of Jupiter.
Scientists theorize that the birth of other large planets, like Saturn, also created chondrules to form. They also suspect that similar planet formation processes occur in other galactic systems beyond our own. By continuing to use computer modeling to study chondrules, the team hopes to learn more about planet formations in our own solar system and far beyond.
Read More: The Oldest Rocks on Earth Are in Canada, and They’re 4.16 Billion Years Old
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