Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 1984
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1984mnras.210..479w&link_type=abstract
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (ISSN 0035-8711), vol. 210, Sept. 15, 1984, p. 479-487.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
39
Chemical Composition, Interstellar Extinction, Interstellar Matter, Abundance, Carbon, Depletion, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, Solar System, Sulfur
Scientific paper
Recent results on interstellar atomic depletions are reviewed and used to place constraints on the density and composition of grains in the diffuse interstellar medium. The total density of depleted material is about 1.8 x 10 to the -26th g/cu cm consistent with that required in grains to explain the rate of interstellar extinction in the galactic plane. Carbon appears to be less important as a grain constituent than has previously been assumed, and models which attribute the optical extinction to bacteria are excluded on the basis of both the carbon depletion and the phosphorus abundance. The metallic elements constitute approximately a third of the grain mass: this can be reconciled with dielectric optical properties only if the dominant chemical configurations are silicates and oxides as in collected interplanetary dust. Problems involved in attributing the bulk of the optical extinction to silicates are briefly discussed.
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