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Cosmochemistry

Inside the cosmic blender

Nature volume 425, pages 137–139 (2003)Cite this article

The Solar System has a largely uniform isotopic composition but with tantalizing small variations. Geochemists are trying to ascertain the mechanisms and types of stars that produced this state of affairs.

Long before astronomers presented us with spectacular images of the material swirling around other stars, Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) proposed that the planets of our Solar System formed from a circumstellar disk. The scale and degree of isotopic heterogeneity of the matter in our Solar System provide unique insights into the dynamics associated with the development of these disks, and on page 152 of this issue Becker and Walker1 highlight some of the problems associated with one class of the isotopes concerned — those of molybdenum.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zentrum, NO C61, Sonneggstrasse 5, Zurich, CH-8092, Switzerland

    Alex N. Halliday

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  1. Alex N. Halliday
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Halliday, A. Inside the cosmic blender. Nature 425, 137–139 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/425137a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/425137a

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