New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the planets formed. The results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, add to an emerging understanding of how our solar system formed and how planets form around other stars.
The 2016 Dishchii’bikoh meteorite fall in the White Mountain Apache reservation in central Arizona has given scientists a big clue to finding out where so-called LL chondrites call home.
Fuzzy yellow crystals discovered in an old uranium mine have been named caseyite in honor of William H. Casey, chemistry professor in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science.
The Earth formed relatively quickly from the cloud of dust and gas around the sun, trapping water and gases in the planet’s mantle, according to research published Dec. 5 in the journal Nature. Apart from settling Earth’s origins, the work could help in identifying extrasolar systems that could support habitable planets.
Three UC Davis geochemists who improved our understanding of Earth and the solar system will be honored at the Geochemical Society’s 2016 Goldschmidt Conference in Yokohama, Japan, on June 30 and July 1. This is the first time in the history of the Geochemical Society that three researchers from the same institution will receive society honors in the same year.
Rock soil droplets formed by heating most likely came from Stone Age house fires and not from a disastrous cosmic impact 12,900 years ago, according to new research from the University of California, Davis. The study, of soil from Syria, is the latest to discredit the controversial theory that a cosmic impact triggered the Younger Dryas cold period.
