Related papers: Bacterial morphologies in carbonaceous meteorites …
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
Carbonaceous chondrites are often considered potential contributors of water and other volatiles to terrestrial planets as most of them contain significant amounts of hydrous mineral phases. As such, carbonaceous chondrites are candidate…
Non-differentiated asteroids are among the most primitive objects in our Solar System, having escaped intense heating mechanisms. To help us understand the information contained in reflectance spectra measured on asteroids, we analyzed…
Although spectral surveys and spacecraft missions provide information on small bodies, many important analyses can only be performed in terrestrial laboratories. For now, the total number of parent bodies represented in our meteorites…
Chondrites are rocky fragments of asteroids that formed at different times and heliocentric distances in the early solar system. Most chondrite groups contain water-bearing minerals, attesting that both water-ice and dust were accreted on…
Carbonaceous asteroids represent the principal source of water in the inner Solar System and might correspond to the main contributors for the delivery of water to Earth. Hydrogen isotopes in water-bearing primitive meteorites, e.g.…
Chondritic meteorites are of great interest since they are one of the most ancient remnants of the early solar system. Some of them, like the carbonaceous CM meteorites experienced aqueous alteration thus their olivine content transformed…
The zodiacal cloud is a thick circumsolar disk of small debris particles produced by asteroid collisions and comets. Here, we present a zodiacal cloud model based on the orbital properties and lifetimes of comets and asteroids, and on the…
When the EPOXI spacecraft flew by Comet 103P/Hartley 2, it observed large particles floating around the comet nucleus. These particles are likely low-density, centimeter- to decimeter-sized clumps of ice and dust. While the origin of these…
Given the central role of carbon in the chemistry of life, it is a fundamental question as to how carbon is supplied to the Earth, in what form and when. We provide an accounting of carbon found in solar system bodies, in particular a…
The construction of models for the internal constitution and the temporal evolution of large planetesimals, the parent bodies of chondrites, requires information on the heat conductivity of the complex mixture of minerals and iron metal…
Any distortion of a chemical structure causes new features to appear in the absorption spectrum of the structure, especially in the visible and near UV (see Paper I). Chemical modeling, using molecular orbital theory, showed that the…
Refractory organic compounds formed in molecular clouds are among the building blocks of the solar system objects and could be the precursors of organic matter found in primitive meteorites and cometary materials. However, little is known…
A "minimum model" for debris disks consists of a narrow ring of parent bodies, secularly forced by a single planet on a possibly eccentric orbit, colliding to produce dust grains that are perturbed by stellar radiation pressure. We…
Prior studies have hypothesized that some polluted white dwarfs record continent-like granitic crust--which is abundant on Earth and perhaps uniquely indicative of plate tectonics. But these inferences derive from only a few elements, none…
Carbonaceous chondrites are a class of meteorite known for having a high content of water and organics. In this study, abundances of the nucleobases, i.e., the building blocks of RNA and DNA, found in carbonaceous chondrites are collated…
Earth's surface is deficient in available forms of many elements considered limiting for prebiotic chemistry. In contrast, many extraterrestrial rocky objects are rich in these same elements. Limiting prebiotic ingredients may, therefore,…
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 $<2.5\ {\rm \mu m}$ have suggested a genetic link between outer…
We present observations and analyses of eight white dwarf stars that have accreted rocky material from their surrounding planetary systems. The spectra of these helium-atmosphere white dwarfs contain detectable optical lines of all four…
In the light of the recent and unexpected discovery of a brand new type of white dwarfs, those with carbon-dominated atmospheres, we examine the asteroseismological potential of such stars. The motivation behind this is based on the…