More Evidence For Multiple Meteorite Magmas

Cosmochemists have identified six main compositional types of magma that formed inside asteroids during the first 100 million years of Solar System history. These magmas vary in their chemical and mineralogical make up, but all have in common low concentrations of sodium and other volatile elements. Our low-sodium-magma diet has now changed. Two groups of researchers have identified a new type of asteroidal magma that is rich in sodium and appears to have formed by partial melting of previously unmelted, volatile-rich chondritic rock.