A STICKY coating on the dust from which Earth and its neighbours formed could
explain a long-standing mystery鈥攚hy there’s so little rubble left in the
asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The planets and asteroids of the Solar System started to build when dust
grains鈥攖ypically silicates with a coating of carbon compounds, encased in
ice鈥攕tuck together in a swirling disc round the young Sun. Experiments
have already simulated this process by colliding particles made of silicates and
ice.
But Akira Kouchi of Hokkaido University in Japan suspects that this may be
only part of the story. He…
