Chondrite

A stony meteorite containing chondrules, small rounded mineral grains formed in the early Solar System. Chondrites preserve material that was not extensively melted or separated into layers.

Chondrule: A small, rounded silicate-rich grain formed by rapid heating and cooling in the early Solar System. These distinctive grains give chondrites their name and record early heating events.
Solar nebula: The rotating cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun and Solar System formed. Chondrite components formed from solids in this early planetary environment.
Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni: A German physicist who argued in 1794 that meteorites came from space. His defense of an extraterrestrial origin helped establish meteorites as scientific objects.
Cosmochemistry: The study of the chemical composition of matter in the Solar System and beyond. Chondrite compositions provide reference data for studying primordial Solar System material.
Chondritic matrix: Fine-grained material between chondrules and other components in many chondritic meteorites. The matrix surrounds chondrules and can preserve different early Solar System material.
Chondrule formation: The processes that melted and rapidly cooled dust aggregates into chondrules in the early Solar System. It explains how chondrites acquired their defining rounded grains.
Jean-Baptiste Biot: A French physicist who investigated the 1803 meteorite fall at L'Aigle. His report provided influential evidence that stones fall from the sky.
Calcium-aluminium-rich inclusion: A refractory inclusion in some meteorites, among the oldest solids formed in the Solar System. These inclusions anchor early Solar System chronology in chondritic samples.
Carbonaceous chondrite: A diverse class of chondrites, often rich in volatile elements and water-bearing minerals. This major chondrite group includes especially primitive, chemically distinctive samples.
Thermal metamorphism: Mineralogical and chemical change caused by heating without complete melting. Heating inside chondrite parent bodies altered minerals and textures after accretion.

Linked from 7 pages