Chronology of the solar system from radioactive isotopes

In this chapter, we review what is known about the chronology of the solar system, based on the radioisotope systems described in Chapter 8. We start by discussing the age of materials that formed the solar system. Short-lived radionuclides also provide information about the galactic environment in which the solar system formed. We then consider how the age of the solar system is estimated from its oldest surviving materials - the refractory inclusions in chondrites. We discuss constraints on the accretion of chondritic asteroids and their subsequent metamorphism and alteration. Next, we discuss the chronology of differentiated asteroids, and of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Finally, we consider the impact histories of the solar system bodies, the timescales for the transport of meteorites from their parent bodies to the Earth, and the residence time of meteorites on the Earth s surface before they disintegrate due to weathering. 

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Chronology of the solar system from radioactive isotopes... 

A number of now extinct radioactive isotopes have existed in the early solar system. This is shown by the variations that they induce in the abundances in their daughter nuclides. Their main use is in establishing a chronology between their parental presolar stellar sources, and the formation of the solar system and the planets. An active debate is presently going on whether some of these short-lived nuclides could have been made within the early solar system by an intense flux of energetic protons from the young sun. 

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