Publication Date:
2008-01-05
Description:
Materials trapped and preserved in comets date from the earliest history of the solar system. Particles captured by the Stardust spacecraft from comet 81P/Wild 2 are indisputable cometary matter available for laboratory study. Here we report measurements of noble gases in Stardust material. Neon isotope ratios are within the range observed in "phase Q," a ubiquitous, primitive organic carrier of noble gases in meteorites. Helium displays 3He/4He ratios twice those in phase Q and in Jupiter's atmosphere. Abundances per gram are surprisingly large, suggesting implantation by ion irradiation. The gases are probably carried in high-temperature igneous grains similar to particles found in other Stardust studies. Collectively, the evidence points to gas acquisition in a hot, high ion-flux nebular environment close to the young Sun.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Marty, Bernard -- Palma, Russell L -- Pepin, Robert O -- Zimmermann, Laurent -- Schlutter, Dennis J -- Burnard, Peter G -- Westphal, Andrew J -- Snead, Christopher J -- Bajt, Sasa -- Becker, Richard H -- Simones, Jacob E -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Jan 4;319(5859):75-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1148001.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques, Nancy Universite, BP 20, 54501 Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy Cedex, France.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18174437" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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