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News and Views
Nature 418, 924-925 (29 August 2002) | doi:10.1038/418924a
Planetary science: Birth of a Solar System
A. G. W. Cameron
Abstract
Radioisotope dating of meteorites suggests that planets formed in the Solar System over shorter timescales than had been thought. There are consequences for how the Moon formed, but is this the final word?
Fortunately for those who attempt to trace the origins of our Solar System, when the primitive solar nebula and planetary bodies began to form there were radioactive nuclei with a wide range of half-lives present. The detection of these nuclei and their decay products, particularly in meteoritic rocks, is a useful tool for working out when various features of the planetary system formed.
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