Jan 15, 2015 02:51 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The formation of solar system may not have had so much to do with meteoric chondrules than previously thought.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Purdue University suggest with a new study, published in the journal Nature, that meteors may have just been part of the process, not the catalyst.

In an MIT News release, the researchers said the new development would mean the solar system's early formation was much more violent than previously thought.

"This tells us that meteorites aren't actually representative of the material that formed planets - they're these smaller fractions of material that are the byproduct of planet formation," study lead author Brandon Johnson, a postdoctoral candidate in MIT's Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences department, said in the release. "But it also tells us the early solar system was more violent than we expected: You had these massive sprays of molten material getting ejected out from these really big impacts. It's an extreme process.

"Once the two bodies collide, a very small amount of material is shocked up to high temperature, to the point where it can melt," he said. "Then this really hot material shoots out from the collision point."

For their study, the researchers ran computer models simulating various collisions taking into account variables like location, timing, size, and velocity.

"Then I had this 'Eureka!' moment where I realized that jetting during these really big impacts could possibly explain the formation of chondrules," Johnson said. "It all fell into place."

The researchers plan to explore the matter further by running more models with different types of collisions.

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