Meteor ablation spherules as chondrule analogs

Abstract

Meteor ablation spherules are melt products of meteoroids that enter the earth's atmosphere. They are produced by aerodynamic melting, a process that surely produced chondrule-like objects in the early solar system but that apparently did not play a role in forming chondrules found in chondrites. The properties of ablation spherules do, however, provide insight into the chondrule problem because the spheres are chondrule analogs formed by a known process. Although the spheres have strong similarities to meteoritic chondrules, they also differ in significant respects. The differences between the spheres and chondrules suggest that chondrules could not have formed by flash melting of a primitive fine-grained chondritic precursor.