Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Shouldn't a strong gravity be needed for this kind of cristal?

Don't need more gravity than will hold the fluids in

Widmanstatten crystal structure of Fe-Ni meteorites is a classic crystal intergrowth pattern, on scales up to hundreds of metres*

* why do I say "hundreds of metres", when we don't have any meteorites this big? - well, you can work out the minimum bounds of a regular crystalline system from the CURVATURE of the crystal shapes and the change in shape/ratio over distance.

* plus, we can calculate from models what cooling rates are required, and we end up with km- to 100-km asteroid cores...

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