scholarly journals A Comprehensive Study of Major, Minor, and Light Element Abundances in Over 100 Interplanetary Dust Particles

1996 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 283-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathie L. Thomas ◽  
Lindsay P. Keller ◽  
David S. McKay

AbstractOver 100 individual and cluster interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) have been analyzed for bulk abundances of 15 elements (C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, K, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni). In general, IDPs have chondritic major element abundances, within a factor of 2 of the CI chondrites, and have carbon contents which average ~2-3 times higher than that of the most primitive, carbon-rich, carbonaceous meteorites (CI). The C-rich material is largely amorphous and is distributed throughout the particle as a matrix surrounding individual grains. The carbonaceous material has either smooth or vesicular texture; the latter texture suggests that volatiles could have been lost by particle heating which occurs during entry through the Earth's atmosphere.

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (A29B) ◽  
pp. 426-426
Author(s):  
Scott Messenger ◽  
K. Nakamura-Messenger

AbstractInterplanetary dust particles (IDPs) collected in the Earths stratosphere derive from collisions among asteroids and by the disruption and outgassing of short-period comets. Chondritic porous (CP) IDPs are among the most primitive Solar System materials. CP-IDPs have been linked to cometary parent bodies by their mineralogy, textures, C-content, and dynamical histories. CP-IDPs are fragile, fine-grained (< um) assemblages of anhydrous amorphous and crystalline silicates, oxides and sulfides bound together by abundant carbonaceous material. Ancient silicate, oxide, and SiC stardust grains exhibiting highly anomalous isotopic compositions are abundant in CP-IDPs, constituting 0.01-1% of the mass of the particles. The organic matter in CP-IDPs is isotopically anomalous, with enrichments in D/H reaching 50x the terrestrial SMOW value and 15N/14N ratios up to 3x terrestrial standard compositions. These anomalies are indicative of low T (10-100 K) mass fractionation in cold molecular cloud or the outermost reaches of the protosolar disk. The organic matter shows distinct morphologies, including sub-um globules, bubbly textures, featureless, and with mineral inclusions. Infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry studies of organic matter in IDPs reveals diverse species including aliphatic and aromatic compounds. The organic matter with the highest isotopic anomalies appears to be richer in aliphatic compounds. These materials also bear similarities and differences with primitive, isotopically anomalous organic matter in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. The diversity of the organic chemistry, morphology, and isotopic properties in IDPs and meteorites reflects variable preservation of interstellar/primordial components and Solar System processing. One unifying feature is the presence of sub-um isotopically anomalous organic globules among all primitive materials, including IDPs, meteorites, and comet Wild-2 samples returned by the Stardust mission. We will present an overview of the current state of understanding of the properties and origins of organic matter in primitive IDPs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (A29A) ◽  
pp. 257-260
Author(s):  
Zita Martins

AbstractComets, asteroids, meteorites, micrometeorites, interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), and ultra-carbonaceous Antarctic micrometeorites (UCAMMs) may contain carbonaceous material, which was exogenously delivered to the early Earth. Carbonaceous chondrites have an enormous variety of extra-terrestrial compounds, including all the key compounds important in terrestrial biochemistry. Comets contain several carbon-rich species and, in addition, the hypervelocity impact-shock of a comet can produce several α-amino acids. The analysis of the carbonaceous content of extra-terrestrial matter provides a window into the resources delivered to the early Earth, which may have been used by the first living organisms.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S251) ◽  
pp. 333-334
Author(s):  
Henner Busemann ◽  
Conel M. O'D. Alexander ◽  
Larry R. Nittler ◽  
Rhonda M. Stroud ◽  
Tom J. Zega ◽  
...  

AbstractMeteorites and Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDPs) are supposed to originate from asteroids and comets, sampling the most primitive bodies in the Solar System. They contain abundant carbonaceous material. Some of this, mostly insoluble organic matter (IOM), likely originated in the protosolar molecular cloud, based on spectral properties and H and N isotope characteristics. Together with cometary material returned with the Stardust mission, these samples provide a benchmark for models aiming to understand organic chemistry in the interstellar medium, as well as for mechanisms that secured the survival of these fragile molecules during Solar System formation. The carrier molecules of the isotope anomalies are largely unknown, although amorphous carbonaceous spheres, so-called nanoglobules, have been identified as carriers. We are using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry to identify isotopically anomalous material in meteoritic IOM and IDPs at a ~100-200 nm scale. Organics of most likely interstellar origin are then extracted with the Focused-Ion-Beam technique and prepared for synchrotron X-ray and Transmission Electron Microscopy. These experiments yield information on the character of the H- and N-bearing interstellar molecules: While the association of H and N isotope anomalies with nanoglobules could be confirmed, we have also identified amorphous, micron-sized monolithic grains. D-enrichments in meteoritic IOM appear not to be systematically associated with any specific functional groups, whereas 15N-rich material can be related to imine and nitrile functionality. The large 15N- enrichments observed here (δ15N > 1000 ‰) cannot be reconciled with models using interstellar ammonia ice reactions, and hence, provide new constraints for understanding the chemistry in cold interstellar clouds.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (S2) ◽  
pp. 412-413
Author(s):  
Z. R. Dai ◽  
J. P. Bradley ◽  
T. P. Snow ◽  
Z. L Wang

It is widely appreciated that the study of (man-made) nanomaterials is a new frontier in materials science, but it is not well appreciated that (natural) nanomaterials represent a new frontier in meteoritics and planetary science [1]. During the next decade the nanogram to microgram quantities of extraterrestrial materials will be returned to Earth from a variety of solar system bodies including comets [2]. Studies of cometary interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) collected in the stratosphere, as well as mass spectrometry data from grains analyzed in-situ at comet Halley, suggest that the returned comet samples will be heterogeneous on a scale of nanometers [3, 4]. (A single 5-10μm diameter IDP may contain >106 individual grains and many different minerals (metal, carbonaceous phases, silicates, sulfides, etc.)). More recent observations of dust around stars, in interplanetary space, and at comet Hale-Bopp indicate that the predominant astronomical grain size is in the nanometer to submicrometer size range [5,6].


2002 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 34-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Bradley

AbstractInterplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are from asteroids and comets, and they are the smallest and most fine-grained meteoritic objects available for laboratory investigation. Cometary IDPs are of special significance because they are presently the only samples of comets, and comets are expected to be enriched in preserved solar nebula and presolar components. These components may include not only cosmically rare refractory circumstellar grains(e.g. SiC) that are recovered from meteorites but also cosmically abundant interstellar silicates and carbonaceous grains that were the fundamental building blocks of the Solar System. D/H ratios measured in IDPs are consistent with the survival of interstellar carbonaceous material, and some IDPs contain glassy grains with properties similar to those of interstellar “amorphous silicates”. Submicrometer forsterite and enstatite crystals in IDPs resemble circumstellar silicates detected by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). ISO also detected a broad ~ 23 µm feature around several stars, and a similar feature observed in IDP spectra is due to submicrometer FeNi sulfide grains, suggesting that sulfide grains may be a significant constituent of astronomical dust.


Author(s):  
D.F. Blake ◽  
T.W. Reilly ◽  
D.E. Brownlee ◽  
T.E. Bunch

Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDPs) are a relatively new class of extraterrestrial materials which are collected by high-flying aircraft in the stratosphere. The particles, ∼1.0-50 μm in size, enter the earth's atmosphere at ballistic velocities, but are sufficiently small to be decelerated without burning up. IDPs commonly have solar elemental abundances, and are thoughfto have undergone very little differentiation since the formation of the solar system. While these materials are called “particles,” they are in fact aggregates of a variety of mineral phases, glass, and carbonaceous material. Grains within IDPs commonly range from a few microns to a few tens of nanometers. The extraterrestrial origin of IDPs has been established by the discovery of solar flare tracks in some mineral grains, and recent D/H isotopic ratios recorded from individual particles. The source and formational history of the particles is a topic of active research. At present, the primary means of screening and classifying IDPs is Scanning Electron Microscopy, although a variety of electron microbeam and X-ray techniques is used for subsequent analysis.


1991 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 1075-1092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elmar K. Jessberger ◽  
Jochen Kissel

AbstractOn board the space probes Giotto and VEGAs and 2, which were sent through the coma of comet Halley, were the mass spectrometers PIA and PUMAs 1 and 2 for the in situ analysis of cometary dust. This paper summarizes the results obtained up to now, about four years after the flybys. It is sought to make the reader aware of the significance, but also of the limitations, of these unprecedented data gathered within a few hundred seconds with an innovative instrument about 1.5 x 108 km away from Earth. The first part of this paper shows how the bulk properties of the dust are derived—the main constituents CHON and silicates, the core-mantle structure, the molecular composition of the organic component, the average composition of the dust and of the whole comet, and the gas/dust ratio. The second part reviews what can safely be said about the properties of the individual grains—their similarity to a certain class of interplanetary dust particles and their distinction from others, and their density and masses. The final part of this paper shows that some cometary grains contain isotopically ultra-light carbon (12C/13C up to 5000), a finding that is significantly substantiated by reports of similar carbon isotopic composition in meteoritic graphite.


1991 ◽  
Vol 126 ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
J. P. Bradley

AbstractThe fine grained mineralogy and petrography of anhydrous “pyroxene” and “olivine” classes of chondritic interplanetary dust have been investigated by numerous electron microscopic studies. The “pyroxene” interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are porous, unequilibrated assemblages of mineral grains, metal, glass, and carbonaceous material. They contain enstatite whiskers, FeNi carbides, and high-Mn olivines and pyroxenes, all of which are likely to be well preserved products of nebular gas reactions. Solar flare tracks are prominent in most “pyroxene” IDPs, indicating that they were not strongly heated during atmospheric entry. The “olivine” IDPs are coarse grained, equilibrated mineral assemblages that have probably experienced strong heating. Since most “olivine” IDPs do not contain tracks, it is possible that this heating occurred during atmospheric entry.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Burgess ◽  
◽  
David Bour ◽  
Rhonda M. Stroud ◽  
Anais Bardyn ◽  
...  

1985 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 365-368
Author(s):  
S. Ibadov

AbstractThe intensity of solar X-radiation scattered by a comet is calculated and compared to the proper X-radiation of the comet due to impacts of cometary and interplanetary dust particles. Detection of X-radiation of dusty comets at small heliocentric distances (R ≤ 1 a.u.) is found to be an indicator of high-temperature plasma generation as result of grain collisions.


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