Other
Scientific paper
Jun 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004psrd.repte..83t&link_type=abstract
Planetary Science Research Discoveries
Other
Meteorites, Silicates, Stardust, Cosmochemistry
Scientific paper
One of the most exciting discoveries in cosmochemistry during the past 15 years is the presence of presolar grains in meteorites. They are identified by the unusual abundances of isotopes of oxygen, silicon, and other elements. Presolar grains, also called stardust, are exotic compounds such as diamond, graphite, aluminum oxide, and silicon carbide. Why are there no silicates? Spectroscopic observations of young stars show that silicates are abundant. This means that silicates are abundant in molecular clouds like the one in which the solar system formed. Cosmochemists wondered why do we not find silicates in the most primitive extraterrestrial materials: interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) and primitive chondrites. These materials are the least altered since they formed and if any preserved presolar silicate grains, IDPs and chondrites would. Were they all destroyed as the solar system formed? Or was it that we were looking for stardust in all the wrong places?
As we reported previously [see PSRD article A New Type of Stardust], Scott Messenger and colleagues have found silicates in IDPs. Now, researchers report finding presolar silicate grains in primitive chondritic meteorites. Ann Nguyen and Ernst Zinner (Washington University in St. Louis) and Kazuhide Nagashima and Hisayoshi Yurimoto (Tokyo Institute of Technology), with Alexander Krot (University of Hawaii) used advanced instrumentation to image the isotopic compositions of small regions of the Acfer 094 carbonaceous chondrite and found several silicate grains with isotopically anomalous oxygen isotopes, a clear indicator of presolar origin. Nagashima and his colleagues also investigated the primitive CR2 carbonaceous chondrite Northwest Africa 530, finding presolar grains in it as well. The grains will shed (star)light on the histories of the stars in which they formed. The relative abundances of presolar silicates in different types of meteorites will help cosmochemists understand the processes of heating and chemical reaction that took place in the cloud of gas and dust in which the Sun and planets formed. The significance of this work is discussed in a lucid editorial by Sara Russell (Natural History Museum, London.)
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