Four and a half billion years ago, Jupiter rapidly grew to its massive size. Its powerful gravitational pull disrupted the orbits of small rocky and icy bodies similar to modern asteroids and comets, called planetesimals. This caused them to smash into each other at such high speeds that the rocks and dust they contained melted on impact and created floating molten rock droplets, or chondrules, that we find preserved in meteorites today.
Molten rock raindrops help trace the history of Jupiter’s formation
