ALBERT

Description: Crystals of halite and sylvite within the Monahans (1998) H5 chondrite contain aqueous fluid inclusions. The fluids are dominantly sodium chloride-potassium chloride brines, but they also contain divalent cations such as iron, magnesium, or calcium. Two possible origins for the brines are indigenous fluids flowing within the asteroid and exogenous fluids delivered into the asteroid surface from a salt-containing icy object.

Description: Aladdin is a remote sensing and sample return mission focused on the two small moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Understanding the moons of Mars will help us to understand the early history of Mars itself. Aladdin's primary objective is to acquire well documented, representative samples from both moons and return them to Earth for detailed analyses. Samples arrive at Earth within three years of launch. Aladdin addresses several of NASA's highest priority science objectives: the origin and evolution of the Martian system (one of two silicate planets with satellites) and the composition and nature of small bodies (the building blocks of the solar system). The Aladdin mission has been selected as a finalist in both the 1997 and 1999 Discovery competitions based on the high quality of science it would accomplish. The equivalent of Aladdin's Phase A development has been successfully completed, yielding a high degree of technical maturity. Aladdin uses an innovative flyby sample acquisition method, which has been validated experimentally and does not require soft landing or anchoring. An initial phasing orbit at Mars reduces mission propulsion requirements, enabling Aladdin to use proven, low-risk chemical propulsion with good mass margin. This phasing orbit is followed by a five month elliptical mission during which there are redundant opportunities for acquisition of samples and characterization of their geologic context using remote sensing. The Aladdin mission is a partnership between Brown University, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, and NASA Johnson Space Center.

Description: Attempts to match the E asteroids with enstatite-rich meteorites universally conclude that the aubrites or enstatite chondrites are natural candidates, and accordingly conclude that E asteroids as a class are very water-poor. Accordingly, the highly reduced nature of typical enstatite-rich meteorites suggests that aqueous alteration was an improbable process on any E asteroid. However, there are spectroscopic observations of several E-class asteroids that suggest the presence there of hydrated phases. Examination of the Kaidun meteorite reveals the true situation.

Description: The ability of living organisms to survive on the smaller bodies in our solar system is examined. The three most significant sterilizing effects include ionizing radiation, prolonged extreme vacuum, and relentless thermal inactivation. Each could be effectively lethal, and even more so in combination, if organisms at some time resided in the surfaces of airless small bodies located near or in the inner solar system. Deep within volatile-rich bodies, certain environments theoretically might provide protection of dormant organisms against these sterilizing factors. Sterility of surface materials to tens or hundreds of centimeters of depth appears inevitable, and to greater depths for bodies which have resided for long periods sunward of about 2 A.U.

Description: The debate about fossil life on Mars includes the origin of magnetites of specific sizes and habits in the siderite-rich portions of the carbonate spheres in ALH 84001 [1,2]. Specifically [2] were able to demonstrate that inorganic synthesis of these compositionally zoned spheres from aqueous solutions of variable ion-concentrations is possible. They further demonstrated the formation of magnetite from siderite upon heating at 550 C under a Mars-like CO2-rich atmosphere according to 3FeCO3 = Fe3O4 + 2CO2 + CO [3] and they postulated that the carbonates in ALH 84001 were heated to these temperatures by some shock event. The average shock pressure for ALH 84001, substantially based on the refractive index of diaplectic feldspar glasses [3,4,5] is some 35-40 GPa and associated temperatures are some 300-400 C [4]. However, some of the feldspar is melted [5], requiring local deviations from this average as high as 45-50 GPa. Indeed, [5] observes the carbonates in ALH 84001 to be melted locally, requiring pressures in excess of 60 GPa and temperatures 〉 600 C. Combining these shock studies with the above inorganic synthesis of zoned carbonates it seems possible to produce the ALH 84001 magnetites by the shock-induced decomposition of siderite.

Description: A population of ferrous silicate spherules composed of cryptocrystalline ol-px-normative material, +/-SiO2-rich glass and rounded-to-euhedral Fe,Ni-metal grains preserved a condensation signature of the precursors formed under oxidizing conditions.

Description: CR carbonaceous chondrites are of the major interest since they contain one of the most primitive organic matters. However, aqueous alteration has more or less overprinted their original features in a way that needed to be assessed. That was done in the present study by comparing the mineralogy of the most altered CR1 chondrite, GRO 95577, to a less altered CR2, Renazzo. Their modal analyses were achieved thanks to a new method, based on X-ray elemental maps acquired on electron microprobe, and on IDL image treatment. It allowed the collection of new data on the composition of Renazzo and confirmed the classification of GRO 95577 as a CR1. New alteration products for CRs, vermiculite and clinochlore, were observed. The homogeneity of the Fe-poor clays in the CR1 and the distinctive matrix composition in the two chondrites suggest a wide-range of aqueous alteration on CRs. The preservation of the outlines of the chondrules in GRO 95577 and the elemental transfers of Al, Fe and Ca throughout the chondrule and of Fe and S from the matrix to the chondrule favor the idea of an asteroidal location of the aqueous alteration. From their mineralogical descriptions and modal abundances, the element repartitions in Renazzo and GRO 95577 were computed. It indicates a possible relationship between these two chondrites via an isochemical alteration process. Knowing the chemical reactions that occurred during the alteration, it was thus possible to decipher the mineralogical modal abundances in the unaltered CR body.

Description: Micrometeorites with sizes below 1 mm are collected in a diversity of environments such as deep-sea sediments and polar caps. Chemical, mineralogical and isotopic studies indicate that micrometeorites are closely related to primitive carbonaceous chondrites that amount to only approximately 2% of meteorite falls. While thousands of micrometeorites have been studied in detail, no micrometeorite has been found so far with an unambiguous achondritic composition and texture. One melted cosmic spherule has a low Fe/Mn ratio similar to that of eucrites, the most common basaltic meteorite group. Here we report on the texture, mineralogy, Rare Earth Elements (REEs) abundance and oxygen isotopic composition of the unmelted Antarctic micrometeorite 99-21-40 that has an unambiguous basaltic origin.

Description: The Tagish Lake meteorite is a new type of water- and carbon-rich carbonaceous chondrite. Its total carbon content is approx. 5 wt% and the organic carbon content reaches approx.1.3 wt%. We reported from the Tagish Lake sample#TL3B6 the first in situ observation of the hollow organic globules. TL3B6 is generally enriched in the organic globules that consist of aliphatic and oxygenated functionality similar to the material produced by the laboratory simulation of UV photolysis of interstellar ice analogs suggesting that the organic globules in Tagish Lake may be extremely primitive organic material that formed before or during the formation of the solar system. Here we report the micro-sampling FTIR analysis of the TL3B6 and the in situ step heating experiments: which can allow us to place 1) significant constraints on the organic functionality in Tagish Lake; 2) the thermal stability of the organics; and 3) thermal history of the meteorite and its parent body. For comparison, the membranous films formed from hydrothermal reaction of an OH-bearing amino acid (theronine: Thr) and silica mixture were examined.

Description: The origin of magnetite crystals in Martian Meteorite ALH84001 is the focus of a debate about the possibility of past (and present) life on Mars. McKay et al. originally suggested that some of the magnetite crystals associated with carbonate globules in Martian Meteorite ALH84001 are biogenic in ori-gin, because they are single magnetic domain, free of crystalline defects, chemically pure, and coexist with other metastable phases in apparent disequilibrium. Thomas-Keprta et al. reported that a subpopulation of magnetite crystals (approx. 25%) associated with carbonate globules in ALH84001 and magnetite crystals produced by magnetotactic bacterial strain MV-1 have similar morphologies with crystal elongation along the [111] crystallographic axis that they describe as "truncated hexa-octahedral" ([111-THO]) magnetite. Along with several other properties, the [111]-THO morphology has been proposed to constitute a biomarker (i.e., formed only in biogenic processes), so that the presence of [111]-THO magnetite in ALH84001 may be evidence for past life on Mars.