Vesta is the second largest object in the asteroid belt with a width of 500 kilometers.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Vesta is a dwarf planet (dwarf planet) in the universe. Vesta is helping scientists to better understand the earliest era in the formation of the solar system.
The study by the University of California used data from meteorites that came from Vesta. This study boosts knowledge about the solar system that occurred just a few million years after it began to form.
Vesta is the second largest object in the asteroid belt with a width of 500 kilometers. Vesta is large enough to evolve in the same way as rocky terrestrial objects like Earth, the moon, and Mars.
At first, Vesta looks like a ball of molten rock heated by the impact. Iron and siderophiles, or transition elements such as rhenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, and palladium sink to the center to form metallic nuclei.
As the planet cools, a thin solid crust forms above the mantle. Then, meteorites carry iron and other elements into the Earth’s crust.
Most planets like Earth are mantle. However, mantle-type rocks as shown in Vesta still rarely found among asteroids and meteorites.
“If we look at meteorites, Earth has a core and crust material, not a mantle,” said Qing-Zhu Yin, professor of earth and planetary sciences at the UC Davis College of Letters and Science.
Planetary scientists call it the missing mantle problem. Because it is so small, Vesta formed solid crust long before larger objects such as Earth, moon, and Mars.
Transitional elements accumulated in the crust and mantle formed the earliest solar system records after the formation of the nucleus. Over time, the collision has broken apart Vesta’s shards which sometimes fall to Earth as meteorites.
Labs at the University of California previously collaborated with an international team examining elements in the moon’s crust to investigate the early solar system. The research team says because Vesta formed so early, it’s a great way to see the entire history of the Solar System.
“This pushes us back two million years after the formation of the solar system,” said Qing-Zhu Yin, one of the researchers and professor of Earth and planetary science at the University of California. Phys, Friday (7/10).
It is thought that Vesta and the larger inner planets could get much of their material from the asteroid belt. But a key finding from the study is that planets such as Mercury, Venus, Earth and moon, Mars and the inner dwarf planets derive most of their mass from collisions and merging with other large liquid bodies in the early solar system.
The asteroid belt represents leftover material from planet formation, but does little to contribute to a larger world. This study paper was published in Nature Communications September 14 then Nature Astronomy on September 30.
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