Review: Cosmochemistry - The early evolution of the inner solar system: A meteoritic perspective

Formation of the solar system may have been triggered by a stellar wind. Fr om then on, the solar system would have followed a conventional evolutionar y path, including the formation of a disk and bipolar jets. The now extinct short-lived radionuclides beryllium-10 and, possibly, manganese-53 that we re present in meteorites probably resulted from energetic particle irradiat ion within the solar system. Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (the oldest k nown solar system solids) and chondrules could have been produced by the bi polar jets, but it is more likely that they formed during Localized events in the asteroid belt. The chondritic meteorites formed within the temperatu re range (100 to 400 kelvin) inferred for the midplane of classical T Tauri disks at 2 to 3 astronomical units from their central stars. However, thes e meteorites may retain a chemical memory of earlier times when midplane te mperatures were much higher. Dissipation of the solar nebula occurred withi n a few million years of solar system formation, whereas differentiation of asteroidal-sized bodies occurred within 5 to 15 million years. The terrest rial planets took similar to 100 million years to form. Consequently, they would have accreted already differentiated bodies, and their final assembly was not completed until after the solar nebula had dispersed. This implies that water-bearing asteroids and/or icy planetesimals that formed near Jup iter are the Likely sources of Earth's water.