---
title: "Planets With Oceans of Lava May Have Given Us Meteorites"
description: "Scientists have discovered that small worlds with lava oceans might be the cause of meteorites that have crashed into our planet."
date: "2020-06-22"
modified: "2020-07-02"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/lava-ocean-planets-given-meteorites"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "chondrites"
  - "meteorites"
  - "space"
  - "the digest"
---

# Planets With Oceans of Lava May Have Given Us Meteorites

![Chondrules, mysterious spherical bubbles found in meteorites, could have an incredibly-hellish origin story from the beginning of the solar system.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/lava-ocean-planets-given-meteorites.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: ESO\</em\>*

## Hellfire

Scientists have been perplexed by the origins of chondrules — the tiny, mysterious spheres found in many of the meteorites that have crashed into Earth. But now, they've got a new hypothesis for where they came from, and it may be the most brutal space theory so far.

As the idea goes, tiny proto-planets covered in *oceans of lava —* yes, lava planets, as seen in science fiction everywhere from [*Star Wars* to *Star Trek* to *Star Fox*](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_in_science_fiction#Lava_planets>) — may have incinerated asteroids as they flew by, melting then flash-freezing bubbles (the chondrules) into them in the process, [according to *The New York Times*](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/meteorites-chondrites-chondrules.html>). If it's true, then it means that probing these chondrules could give scientists a rare glimpse into the hellish early days of our solar system.

## No Good Answers

The research, presented this month at the American Astronomical Society's meeting, is still imperfect — chondrules and the meteorites that contain them continue to elude an easy description.

But this new explanation checks many boxes, and it's almost poetic that, as the *NYT* reports, it mirrors an early 19th-century description of chondrules as "droplets of fiery rain."

## Circling Back

Interestingly enough, the idea that meteors bubbled as they flew past lava oceans suggests that chondrules would be extremely rare — yet chondrule-packed chondrites make up 86 percent of [the meteorites that hit Earth](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/rocks-distant-asteroid-earth>). And some of them even have chondrules that seem to have melted on two separate occasions, Rowan University researcher Harold Connolly, a critic of the theory, told the *NYT*.

"Chondrule formation is just a really thorny problem," University of Manchester researcher Rhian Jones told the *NYT*. "So anytime somebody comes up with something completely different it’s very welcome, because we don’t have the answer."

**READ MORE:** [Small Worlds With Lava Oceans Might Have Given Us Meteorites](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/meteorites-chondrites-chondrules.html>) \[*The New York Times*\]

**More on meteorites:** *[Rocks on a Distant Asteroid Resemble Those on Earth](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/rocks-distant-asteroid-earth>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)