Scientists have published an analysis laying out how the tiny beads of glass inside many meteorites came to be — and what they can tell us about what happened in the early solar system.

Scientists with the University of Chicago have published an analysis laying out how these beads, which are found in many meteorites, came to be — and what they can tell us about what happened in the early solar system.

«These are big questions,» said UChicago alum Nicole Xike Nie, PhD’19, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science and first author of the study. «Meteorites are snapshots that can reveal the conditions this early dust experienced — which has implications for the evolution of both Earth and other planets.»

‘This question goes back 50 years’

The beads of glass inside these meteorites are called chondrules. Scientists think they are bits of rock left over from the debris that was floating around billions of years ago, which eventually coalesced into the planets we now know and love. These are immensely useful to scientists, who can get their hands on pieces of the original stuff that comprised the solar system — before the constant churn of volcanoes and tectonic plates of Earth changed all the rock we can find on the planet itself.

But what exactly caused the formation of these chondrules remains unclear.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Chicago. Original written by Louise Lerner. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.