Scientists have uncovered evidence that provides clues about the early state of our solar system. A recent study was published that contained data gathered from asteroids indicating that the early solar system may have had a very dynamic start.
When scientists first studies asteroids, they initially thought that these celestial bodies had fairly uniforms compositions. However, recent data suggests that individual asteroids can differ greatly from one another in terms of size, shape and composition. Moreover, researchers have found anomalies in asteroid composition and distribution, finding certain asteroids with specific compositions in unlikely locations.
Benoit Carry and Francesca DeMeo, researchers from the Paris Observatory and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, conducted the study. Based on their findings published in the online journal Nature, it seems that celestial bodies in our solar system including planets and asteroids may have moved and migrated across the system during the early stages of the solar system's development. Specifically, this period of dynamism and changes occurred during the first billion years after the initial formation of our solar system.
"In modern dynamical models, the giant planets are thought to have migrated over substantial distances, shaking up the asteroids - which formed throughout the solar system - like flakes in a snow globe, and transporting some of them to their current locations in the asteroid belt," says Carry and DeMeo.
Scientists have proposed many theories over the years regarding planetary migrations. However, the effect of these migrations on asteroids has only recently been considered. After analyzing the compositions and current locations of various asteroids, the researchers theorize that the gas giant Jupiter may have migrated to a location very close to the sun billions of years ago. In fact, it may have moved to a distance as close to the sun as the current orbit of Mars.
"Jupiter would have moved right through the primordial asteroid belt, emptying it and then repopulating it with scrambled material from both the inner and outer solar system as Jupiter then reversed course and headed back towards the outer solar system," says Carry and DeMeo.s
Due to advances in technology, scientists are uncovering more and more facts about the early history of our solar system. Moreover, new tools such as NASA's Dawn spacecraft may provide even more data for future analysis.s
