Abstract
Radiometric dating shows that the earliest steps in forming the substance of meteorites and assembling it into planetesimals occurred in a very short interval of time, 1–2 Ma. This study shows that rapid formation is also dictated by the need to use short-lived 26Al (half-life T 1/2=0.74 Ma) as a heat source to metamorphose and in some cases melt the meteorite parent bodies after they accreted. The earliest events in solar system history dated by cosmochemists, formation at high temperatures of the Ca,Al-rich inclusions that occur in chondritic meteorites, probably occurred during the most energetic stage of protosolar disk evolution, as the protosun neared its present mass and infall drew to a close.
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Wood, J.A. The Beginning: Swift and Violent. Space Science Reviews 92, 97–112 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005207008031
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005207008031