We've always known the young Solar System was a chaotic place. A new study defines the cause and a timeline for all that chaos.
Scientists are keenly interested in iron meteorites because of the information they contain. A new study based on iron meteorites—which are fragments from the core of larger asteroids—looked at isotopes of Palladium, Silver, and Platinum. By measuring the amounts of those isotopes, the authors could more tightly constrain the timing of some events in the early Solar System.
The ancient Egyptians and the Inuit didn’t know anything about elements, isotopes, and decay chains, but we do. We understand how different elements decay in chains into other elements, and we know how long it takes. One of those decay chains is at the heart of this work: the short-lived 107Pd–107Ag decay system. That chain has a half-life of about 6.
This is not the first time researchers have studied asteroids and isotopes in this way. But earlier studies didn’t account for the effects of galactic cosmic rays on the isotope ratios. GCRs can disrupt the neutron capture process during decay and can decrease the amount of 107 Ag and 109 Ag. These new results are corrected for GCR interference by also counting Platinum isotopes.
A four million-year time span is short in astronomy. During that brief period, all of the asteroids measured had their cores exposed, meaning collisions with other objects stripped away their mantles. Without the insulating mantles, the cores all cooled simultaneously. Other studies have shown that the cooling was rapid, but they couldn’t constrain the timeframe as clearly.
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