Analysis by UChicago scientists reverses earlier findings, suggests large temperature swings A new analysis of ceramic chips embedded in meteorites suggests the formation of our solar system was not as quiet and orderly as we once thought. A new study from University of Chicago scientists builds evidence that the baby solar system likely witnessed wild temperature swings and changing conditions—contradicting the decades-old theory that the solar system had gradually and steadily cooled following the formation of the Sun. Published Jan. 6 in Science Advances, the study finds its answers in gifts from outer space. Because rocks on Earth are constantly pulled under tectonic plates, melted and reformed, they don’t offer much evidence for what our solar system looked like four and half billion years ago. Instead, scientists look to meteorites.