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22 April 2026 Rapid cooling shaped the formation of the first meteorites in the Solar System A model of the early Solar System that cools too quickly to reach chemical equilibrium generates mineral regimes resembling important classes of meteorites. By Dante Lauretta ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2597-5950 0 Dante Lauretta Dante Lauretta is in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. View author publications PubMed Google Scholar
Meteorites preserve fragments of the earliest solid materials that formed around the young Sun. The Solar System began as a cloud of dust and gas called the solar nebula — the Sun formed at the centre, surrounded by a disk of material known as a protoplanetary disk, from which the planets were eventually born. Solid minerals were created through the condensation of various elements as the solar nebula cooled. The most chemically primitive meteorites are known as chondrites. Although they exist in many forms, they can all be sorted into one of three chemically distinct classes, but theoretical models have struggled to explain why.
Nature 652, 861-862 (2026)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01046-1
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Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests.
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