During the formation of terrestrial planets, volatile loss may occur through nebular processing, planetesimal differentiation, and planetary accretion. We investigate iron meteorites as an archive of volatile loss during planetesimal processing. The carbon contents of the parent bodies of magmatic iron meteorites are reconstructed by thermodynamic modelling. Calculated solid/molten alloy partitioning of C increases greatly with liquid S concentration and inferred parent body C concentrations range from 0.0004 to 0.11 wt.%. Parent bodies fall into 2 compositional clusters characterized by cores with medium, and low C/S. Both of these require significant planetesimal degassing, as metamorphic devolatilization on chondrite-like precursors is insufficient to account for their C depletions. Planetesimal core formation models, ranging from closed system extraction to degassing of a wholly molten body, show that significant open system silicate melting and volatile loss is required to match medium and low C/S parent body core compositions. Greater depletion in C relative to S is the hallmark of silicate degassing, indicating that parent body core compositions record processes that affect composite silicate/iron planetesimals. Degassing of bare cores stripped of their silicate mantles would deplete S with negligible C loss, and could not account for inferred parent body core compositions. Devolatilization during small-body differentiation is thus a key process in shaping the volatile inventory of terrestrial planets derived from planetesimals and planetary embryos.
The 182Hf-182W chronology of iron meteorites provides crucial information on the timescales of accretion and differentiation of some of the oldest planetesimals of the Solar System. Determining accurate Hf-W model ages of iron meteorites requires correction for cosmic ray expo-sure (CRE) induced modifications of W isotope compositions, which can be achieved using in-situ neutron dosimeters such as Pt isotopes. Until now it has been assumed that all Pt isotope variations in meteorites reflect CRE, but here we show that some ungrouped iron meteorites display small nucleosynthetic Pt isotope anom…
The ungrouped iron meteorite Nedagolla is the first meteorite with bulk Mo, Ru, and Ni isotopic compositions that are intermediate between those of the non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) meteorite reservoirs. The Hf-W chronology of Nedagolla indicates that this mixed NC-CC isotopic composition was established relatively late, more than 7 million years after Solar System formation. The mixed NC-CC isotopic composition is consistent with the chemical composition of Nedagolla, which combines signatures of metal segregation under more oxidizing conditions (relative depletions in Mo and W)…
Rapid cooling of planetesimal cores has been inferred for several iron meteorite parent bodies based on metallographic cooling rates, and linked to the loss of their insulating mantles during impacts. However, the timing of these disruptive events is poorly constrained. Here, we used the short-lived 107Pd / 107Ag decay system to date rapid core cooling by determining Pd-Ag ages for iron meteorites. We show closure times for the iron meteorites equate to cooling in the timeframe ~7.8 to 11.7 Myr after CAI, and indicate that an energetic inner Solar System persisted at this time. This likely res…
We investigated the hydrogen isotopic compositions and water contents of pyroxenes in two recent ordinary chondrite falls, namely, Chelyabinsk (2013 fall) and Benenitra (2018 fall), and compared them to three ordinary chondrite Antarctic finds, namely Graves Nunataks GRA 06179, Larkman Nunatak LAR 12241, and Dominion Range DOM 10035. The pyroxene minerals in Benenitra and Chelyabinsk are hydrated ($\sim$0.018-0.087 wt.$\%$ H$_2$O) and show D-poor isotopic signatures ($δ$D$_{SMOW}$ from -444$\unicode{x2030}$ to -49$\unicode{x2030}$). On the contrary, the ordinary chondrite finds exhibit evidenc…
Metallic microstructures in slowly-cooled iron-rich meteorites reflect the thermal and magnetic histories of their parent planetesimals. Of particular interest is the cloudy zone, a nanoscale intergrowth of Ni-rich islands within a Ni-poor matrix that forms below 350°C by spinodal decomposition. The sizes of the islands have long been recognized as reflecting the low-temperature cooling rates of meteorite parent bodies. However, a model capable of providing quantitative cooling rate estimates from island sizes has been lacking. Moreover, these islands are also capable of preserving a record of…
Long-lived thermal dynamo generation on differentiated, impact-disrupted planetesimals
organization= Centre for Planetary Habitability , addressline= Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo , city= Oslo , country= Norway；organization= Department of Earth Sciences , addressline= University of Oxford, South Parks Road , city= Oxford , postcode= OX1 3AN , country= UK
Prebiotic molecules, fundamental building blocks for the origin of life, have been found in carbonaceous chondrites. The exogenous delivery of these organic molecules onto the Hadean Earth could have sparked the polymerization of the first RNA molecules in Darwinian ponds during wet-dry cycles. Here, we investigate the formation of the RNA and DNA nucleobases adenine, uracil, cytosine, guanine, and thymine inside parent body planetesimals of carbonaceous chondrites. An up-to-date thermochemical equilibrium model coupled with a 1D thermodynamic planetesimal model is used to calculate the nucleo…
The fundamentally different isotopic compositions of non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) meteorites reveal the presence of two distinct reservoirs in the solar protoplanetary disk that were likely separated by Jupiter. However, the extent of material exchange between these reservoirs, and how this affected the composition of the inner disk are not known. Here we show that NC meteorites display broadly correlated isotopic variations for Mo, Ti, Cr, and Ni, indicating the addition of isotopically distinct material to the inner disk. The added material resembles bulk CC meteorites and Ca-…
Outgassing Composition of the Murchison Meteorite: Implications for Volatile Depletion of Planetesimals and Interior-atmosphere Connections for Terrestrial Exoplanets
This review chapter for young researchers presents our current understanding of debris discs. It introduces some of their basic properties and observables, and describes how we think they form and collisionally evolve. Special emphasis is dedicated to ALMA observations of the dust and gas, which constrains the distribution of planetesimals, their volatile composition, and potential volatile delivery to planetary atmospheres.
Finding and characterizing extrasolar Earth analogs will rely on interpretation of the planetary system's environmental context. The total budget and fractionation between C-H-O species sensitively affect the climatic and geodynamic state of terrestrial worlds, but their main delivery channels are poorly constrained. We connect numerical models of volatile chemistry and pebble coagulation in the circumstellar disk with the internal compositional evolution of planetesimals during the primary accretion phase. Our simulations demonstrate that disk chemistry and degassing from planetesimals operat…
On The Effect of Giant Planets on the Scattering of Parent Bodies of Iron Meteorite from the Terrestrial Planet Region into the Asteroid Belt: A Concept Study
Volatile depletion in rocky planets as a chemical fingerprint of hybrid accretion
University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学）；ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；University of Alabama（阿拉巴马大学）；University of Nevada, Las Vegas（内华达大学拉斯维加斯分校）；University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学）
Planetesimal Formation Across the Stellar Mass Spectrum and its Influence on Exoplanet-Inherited Volatile Budgets
University of Exeter（埃克塞特大学）；Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research（马克斯·普朗克太阳系研究所）；Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学卡普坦天文研究所）
A Collective Trigger for Widespread Planetesimal Formation Revealed by Accretion Ages
University of Oxford（牛津大学）；University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学）；University of California Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校）；Université Clermont Auvergne（克莱蒙奥弗涅大学）；Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory（劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）
We assess whether chondrules, once-molten mm-sized spheres filling the oldest meteorites, could have formed from super-km/s collisions between planetesimals in the solar nebula. High-velocity collisions release hot and dense clouds of silicate vapor which entrain and heat chondrule precursors. Thermal histories of CB chondrules are reproduced for colliding bodies $\sim$10--100 km in radius. The slower cooling rates of non-CB, porphyritic chondrules point to colliders with radii $\gtrsim$ 500 km. How chondrules, collisionally dispersed into the nebula, agglomerated into meteorite parent bodies …
Born as ice-rich planetesimals, cometary nuclei were gravitationally scattered onto their current orbits in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud during the giant planets' dynamical instability in the early stages of our Solar System's history. Here, we model the thermal evolution of planetesimals during and after the giant planet instability. We couple an adapted thermal evolution model to orbital trajectories provided by \textit{N}-body simulations to account for the planetesimals' orbital evolution, a parameter so far neglected by previous thermal evolution studies. Our simulations demonstrate…
Formation of Cosmic Crystals in Highly-Supersaturated Silicate Vapor Produced by Planetesimal Bow Shocks
一些证据表明，在原始陨石和行星际尘埃颗粒（IDP）中观察到的细硅酸盐晶体在过饱和硅酸盐蒸气中成核，然后结晶生长。我们研究了$μ$ m大小的硅酸盐颗粒的蒸发和结晶硅酸盐从蒸汽中的冷凝，从而产生的弓形激波产生的小行星轨道在早期太阳星云的气体加热。我们对激波加热的数值模拟表明，当弓形激波强到足以使球粒前体尘埃颗粒熔化时，这些微米级颗粒几乎完全蒸发。我们发现，硅酸盐蒸汽冷却非常迅速的膨胀到周围的无冲击星云区域，冷却速率估计，例如，高达2000 K s $^{-1}$的蒸汽加热的弓激波与半径为1公里的星子。蒸汽的快速冷却导致尘埃的非平衡气相冷凝，其温度远低于平衡冷凝的预期温度。结果发现，冷凝温度低于几百K或更多的平衡温度。这解释了最近硅酸盐蒸汽冷凝实验研究的结果，即在如此大的过冷度下的冷凝再现了与陨石中发现的硅酸盐晶体相似的形态。我们的研究结果强烈地表明，在早期太阳系中，星子弓形激波不仅是球粒形成的可能场所之一，而且也是其他宇宙晶体形成的可能场所之一。
Comets and small Kuiper belt objects are considered to be among the most primitive objects in the solar system as comets like C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp are rich in highly volatile ices like CO. It has been suggested that early in the solar system evolution the precursors of both groups, the so-called icy planetesimals, were modified by both short-lived radiogenic heating and collisional heating. Here we employ 2D finite-difference numerical models to study the internal thermal evolution of these objects, where we vary formation time, radius and rock-to-ice mass fraction. Additionally we perform 3D S…
Formation of the first planetesimals remains an unsolved problem. Growth by sticking must initiate the process, but multiple studies have revealed a series of barriers that can slow or stall growth, most of them due to nebula turbulence. In a companion paper, we study the influence of these barriers on models of fractal aggregate and solid, compact particle growth in a viscously evolving solar-like nebula for a range of turbulent intensities $α_{\rm{t}} = 10^{-5}-10^{-2}$. Here, we examine how disk composition in these same models changes with time. We find that advection and diffusion of smal…
Context. Andesitic meteorites are among the oldest achondrites known to date. They record volcanic events and crust formation episodes in primordial planetesimals that took place about 4.565 Myr ago. However, no analogue for these meteorites has been found in the asteroid population to date. Aims. We searched for spectroscopic analogues of the andesitic meteorite Erg Chech 002 in the asteroid population using the Gaia DR3 spectral dataset. Methods. In order to identify which asteroids have the most similar spectrum to Erg Chech 002, we first determined the spectral parameters of Gaia DR3 aster…
Dynamical orbital evolution of asteroids and planetesimals across distinct chemical reservoirs due to accretion growth of planets in the early solar system
Volatile compositions of asteroids provide information on the Solar System history and the origins of Earth's volatiles. Visible to near-infrared observations at wavelengths of $<2.5\ {\rm μm}$ have suggested a genetic link between outer main belt asteroids located at $2.5$-$4\ {\rm au}$ and carbonaceous chondrite meteorites (CCs) that show isotopic similarities to volatile elements on Earth. However, recent longer wavelength data for large outer main belt asteroids show $3.1\ {\rm μm}$ absorption features of ammoniated phyllosilicates that are absent in CCs and cannot easily form from materia…
The formation of planetesimals was a key step in the assemblage of planetary bodies, yet many aspects of their formation remain poorly constrained. Notably, the mechanism by which chondrules -- sub-millimetric spheroids that dominate primitive meteorites -- were incorporated into planetesimals remains poorly understood. Here we classify and analyze particle-size distributions in various CO carbonaceous chondrites found in the Atacama Desert. Our results show that the average circle-equivalent diameters of chondrules define a positive trend with the petrographic grade, which reflects the progre…
Some families of carbonaceous chondrites are rich in prebiotic organics that may have contributed to the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere. However, the formation and chemical evolution of complex soluble organic molecules from interstellar precursors under relevant parent body conditions has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, we approach this topic by simulating meteorite parent body aqueous alteration of interstellar residue analogs. The distributions of amines and amino acids are qualitatively and quantitatively investigated and linked to closing the gap between interstell…
