The study does not reveal whether chondrules were formed by heat from huge solar flares , lightning bolts or collisions between increasingly larger objects in the young solar system. But whatever happened, it cooked the dust for different periods of time to produce the various chemical compositions now seen in meteorite chondrules, according to Cohen and her coauthors, geology professor Roger Hewins and former research scientist Yang Yu. We ve got incredibly little hard evidence to address that question. We are getting a better handle on conditions that prevailed when the solar system was young. Meteorites are leftovers from the newborn solar system.
Chondrules are highly diverse in composition.
If we can get information on how they came to be highly diverse, then we have an important clue. Cohen said dust formed as the early solar nebula of gas cooled somewhat. Chondrules might have been the link between dust and larger objects. It was thought dust would have to be heated to different temperatures to produce chondrules with various chemical compositions. Yet solar flares, lightning and impact shocks all would produce similar temperatures, Cohen and colleagues wrote.