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Chondrite meteorites are believed to represent the building blocks of the solar nebula, out of which our solar system formed. They are a mixture of silicate and oxide objects (chondrules and refractory inclusions) that experienced extremely…
Models predict that more than half of all impacting meteoroids should be carbonaceous, reflecting the abundance of carbon-rich asteroids in the main belt and near-Earth space. Yet carbonaceous chondrites represent only about 4% of…
The most abundant components of primitive meteorites (chondrites) are millimeter-sized glassy spherical chondrules formed by transient melting events in the solar protoplanetary disk. Using Pb-Pb dates of 22 individual chondrules, we show…
The Earth and other rocky bodies in the inner solar system contain significantly less carbon than the primordial materials that seeded their formation. These carbon-poor objects include the parent bodies of primitive meteorites, suggesting…
Aims. The existence of asteroid complexes produced by the disruption of these comets suggests that evolved comets could also produce high-strength materials able to survive as meteorites. We chose as an example comet 2P/Encke, one of the…
Undifferentiated asteroids, particularly the parent bodies of carbon-rich chondrite groups, might be promising candidates for future space resource utilization due to their primitive composition and potential to host valuable metals and…
A series of astronomical observations obtained over the period 1986 to 2018 supports the idea that life is a cosmic rather than a purely terrestrial or planetary phenomenon. These include (1) the detection of biologically relevant molecules…
We review models of chondrite component transport in the gaseous protoplanetary disk. Refractory inclusions were likely transported by turbulent diffusion and possible early disk expansion, and required low turbulence for their subsequent…
Beneath the fusion-encrusted surfaces of the most primitive stony meteorites lies not homogeneous rock, but a profusion of millimeter-sized igneous spheres. These chondrules, and their centimeter-sized counterparts, the…
Least-processed carbonaceous chondrites (carbonaceous chondrites that have experienced minimal aqueous alteration and thermal metamorphism) are characterized by their predominately amorphous iron-rich silicate interchondrule matrices and…
Chondrules formed by the melting of dust aggregates in the solar protoplanetary disk and as such provide unique insights into how solid material was transported and mixed within the disk. Here we show that chondrules from enstatite and…
Despite being all roughly of solar composition, primitive meteorites (chondrites) present a diversity in their chemical, isotopic and petrographic properties, and in particular a first-order dichotomy between carbonaceous and…
Circumstellar disks of planetary debris are now known or suspected to closely orbit hundreds of white dwarf stars. To date, both data and theory support disks that are entirely contained within the preceding giant stellar radii, and hence…
Chondrites are one of the most primitive objects in the solar system, and keep the record of the degree of thermal metamorphism experienced in their parent bodies. This thermal history can be classified by the petrologic type. We…
The MIDAS (Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System) atomic force microscope on board the Rosetta comet orbiter investigated and measured the 3D topography of a few hundred nm to tens of $\mu$m sized dust particles of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko…
Radionuclides with half-lives ranging from some years to billions of years presumably synthesized outside of the solar system are now recorded in `live' or `fossil' form in various types of materials, like meteorites or the galactic cosmic…
Given the compositional diversity of asteroids, and their distribution in space, it is impossible to consider returning samples from each one to establish their origin. However, the velocity and molecular composition of primary minerals,…
Comets likely formed in the outer regions of the protosolar nebula where they incorporated and preserved primitive presolar materials, volatiles resident in the outer disk, and more refractory materials from throughout the disk. The return…
There is accumulating evidence for the presence of complex molecules, including carbon-bearing and organic molecules, in the interstellar medium. Much of this evidence comes to us from studies of chemical composition, photo- and…
Major element fractionation among chondrites has been discussed for decades as ratios relative to Si or Mg. Expressing ratios relative to Fe leads to a new relationship admitting the possibility that ordinary chondrite meteorites are…