chondrule

American  

[kon-drool] / ˈkɒn drul /

noun

1. a small round mass of olivine or pyroxene found in stony meteorites.

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chondrule British  

/ ˈkɒndruːl /

noun

1. one of the small spherical masses of mainly silicate minerals present in chondrites

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chondrule Scientific  

/ kŏn′dro̅o̅l /

1. A small round granule of olivine or pyroxene occurring in many stony meteorites. Chondrules are thought to have formed from the condensation of hot gases in the solar system.

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Etymology

Origin of chondrule

First recorded in 1885–90; chondr- + -ule

Example Sentences

“We can build a story about how planets form without ever invoking chondrule formation,” says Ciesla.

From Scientific American • Dec. 8, 2020

Hayabusa2 is not the only sample return mission with extraterrestrial gifts in store for chondrule scientists.

From Scientific American • Dec. 8, 2020

Against such magnificent achievements, the stubborn enigma of the lowly chondrule seems to shrink even smaller than its already niche status.

From Scientific American • Dec. 8, 2020

“They are stained glass windows to the earliest time period of the solar system,” says Harold Connolly, a cosmochemist and chondrule expert from Rowan University in New Jersey.

From Scientific American • Dec. 8, 2020

Then he ground the remainder and purified a sample of meteor material until it was free of chondrule fragments.

From Time Magazine Archive