Study of meteorite ‘Northwest Africa 14250’ reveals composition of early solar system

A multi-institutional team of planetary scientists learned more about the early composition of the Solar System by studying a meteorite called Northwest Africa 14250. In their study, published in the journal Scientific advancesthe group used a scanning tunneling microscope to learn more about the isotopic composition of the clasts inside the sample.

Previous research suggested that the solar system began as nothing more than a cloud of dust. Then the spinning of the cloud of material led to the formation of a disk with a center that eventually formed the sun. The outer parts of the disk eventually formed all the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets.

Scientists believe that some of this early material has remained largely unchanged and is orbiting the planets—that material is the Oort cloud, which is now mostly composed of chunks of ice and rock.

Such pieces, if they happen to reach Earth, are considered comets. If they collide with Earth, they burn up in the atmosphere, making it difficult to study their composition. But in recent years, scientists have discovered that sometimes such comets collide with meteorites and the materials can stick. These meteorites, if they reach the Earth’s surface, can be studied.

In this new effort, the research team analyzed one such meteorite, named Northwest Africa 14250.

The team focused on clasts, which are clumps of material found in meteorites that are not the original meteorite material – they are foreign and may be pieces of other meteorites or comets.

By studying the isotopic composition of the clasts using a scanning tunneling microscope, the research team found that they were similar to clasts found in other meteorites known to come from beyond Neptune and those recovered from the asteroid Ryugu.

Such findings, the team suggests, suggest that primordial material is common in the Solar System, and that the protoplanetary disk was probably quite uniform as well.