Chondritic meteorites are composed of primitive components formed during the evolution of the Solar protoplanetary disk. The oldest of these components formed by condensation, yet little is known about their formation mechanism because of secondary heating processes that erased their primordial signature. Amoeboid Olivine Aggregates (AOAs) have never been melted and underwent minimal thermal annealing, implying they might have retained the conditions under which they condensed. We performed a multiisotope (O, Si, Mg) characterization of AOAs to constrain the conditions under which they condensed and the information they bear on the structure and evolution of the Solar protoplanetary disk. High-precision silicon isotopic measurements of 7 AOAs from weakly metamorphosed carbonaceous chondrites show large, mass-dependent, light Si isotope enrichments (-9‰ < δSi < -1‰). Based on physical modeling of condensation within the protoplanetary disk, we attribute these isotopic compositions to the rapid condensation of AOAs over timescales of days to weeks. The same AOAs show slightly positive δMg that suggest that Mg isotopic homogenization occurred during thermal annealing without affecting Si isotopes. Such short condensation times for AOAs are inconsistent with disk transport timescales, indicating that AOAs, and likely other high-temperature condensates, formed during brief localized high-temperature events.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912479116 | DOI Listing |
Nature
November 2024
Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Astronomers have found more than a dozen planets transiting stars that are 10-40 million years old, but younger transiting planets have remained elusive. The lack of such discoveries may be because planets have not fully formed at this age or because our view is blocked by the protoplanetary disk. However, we now know that many outer disks are warped or broken; provided the inner disk is depleted, transiting planets may thus be visible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpace Sci Rev
November 2024
Institute for Geochemistry and Petrology, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
We provide an overview of the isotopic signatures of presolar supernova grains, specifically focusing on Ti-containing grains with robustly inferred supernova origins and their implications for nucleosynthesis and mixing mechanisms in supernovae. Recent technique advancements have enabled the differentiation between radiogenic (from Ti decay) and nonradiogenic Ca excesses in presolar grains, made possible by enhanced spatial resolution of Ca-Ti isotope analyses with the Cameca NanoSIMS (Nano-scale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer) instrument. Within the context of presolar supernova grain data, we discuss () the production of Ti in supernovae and the impact of interstellar medium heterogeneities on the galactic chemical evolution of Ca/Ca, () the nucleosynthesis processes of neutron bursts and explosive H-burning in Type II supernovae, and () challenges in identifying the progenitor supernovae for Cr-rich presolar nanospinel grains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Astron
February 2024
Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
The water molecule is a key ingredient in the formation of planetary systems, with the water snowline being a favourable location for the growth of massive planetary cores. Here we present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array data of the ringed protoplanetary disk orbiting the young star HL Tauri that show centrally peaked, bright emission arising from three distinct transitions of the main water isotopologue ( ). The spatially and spectrally resolved water content probes gas in a thermal range down to the water sublimation temperature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Adv
September 2024
J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Dolejškova 3, CZ 18223 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
Intense bombardment of solar system planets in the immediate aftermath of protoplanetary disk dissipation has played a key role in their atmospheric evolution. During this epoch, energetic collisions will have removed substantial masses of gas from rocky planet atmospheres. Noble gases are powerful tracers of this early atmospheric history, xenon in particular, which on Mars and Earth shows significant depletions and isotopic fractionations relative to the lighter noble gasses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
July 2024
Klaus-Tschira-Labor für Kosmochemie, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 234-236, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany.
The formation of planets in our solar system encompassed various stages of accretion of planetesimals that formed in the protoplanetary disk within the first few million years at different distances to the sun. Their chemical diversity is reflected by compositionally variable meteorite groups from different parent bodies. There is general consensus that their formation location is roughly constrained by a dichotomy of nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies, relating carbonaceous (C) meteorite parent bodies to the outer protoplanetary disk and the non-carbonaceous (NC) parent bodies to an origin closer to the sun.
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