Related papers: Mineral Processing by Short Circuits in Protoplane…
Collisional growth of dust occurs in all regions of protoplanetary disks with certain materials dominating between various condensation lines. The sticking properties of the prevalent dust species depend on the specific temperatures. The…
Mid-infrared spectra of a few T Tauri stars (TTS) taken with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on board the Spitzer Space Telescope show prominent narrow emission features indicating silica (crystalline silicon dioxide). Silica is not a major…
We have developed a method for simulating the mesoscale compaction of early solar system solids in low velocity impact events, using the iSALE shock physics code. Chondrules are represented by nonporous disks, placed within a porous matrix.…
Hot temperature minerals have been detected in a large number of comets and were also identified in the samples of Comet Wild 2 that were returned by the Stardust mission. Meanwhile, observations of the distribution of hot minerals in young…
In previous laboratory experiments, we measured the temperature dependence of sticking forces between micrometer grains of chondritic composition. The data showed a decrease in surface energy by a factor ~5 with increasing temperature.…
Current models of chemical evolution during star and planetary formation rely on the presence of dust grains to act as a third body. However, they generally ignore the reactivity of the dust grains themselves. Dust grains present in the…
We study the formation of the protoplanetary disk by the collapse of a primordial molecular cloud, and how its evolution leads to the selection of specific types of planets. We use a hydrodynamical code that accounts for the dynamics,…
Protoplanetary discs are made of gas and dust orbiting a young star. They are also the birth place of planetary systems, which motivates a large amount of observational and theoretical research. In these lecture notes, I present a review of…
The origin of crystalline grains in comets and the outer regions of protoplanetary disks remains a mystery. It has been suggested that such grains form via annealing of amorphous precursors in the hot, inner region of a protoplanetary disk,…
Research over the past four decades has shown a rich variety of complex organic molecular content in some meteorites. This current study is an attempt to gain a better insight into the thermal conditions experienced by these molecules…
Silicate dust grains in the interstellar medium are known to be mostly amorphous, yet crystalline silicate grains have been observed in many long-period comets and in protoplanetary disks. Annealing of amorphous silicate grains into…
A chondrule formation theory is presented where the chondrule formation zone is located within 0.1 AU of the protosun. This hot, optically thick, inner zone of the solar accretion disk is coincident with the formation region of the…
The meteoritical record shows both iron partitioning and tungsten isotopic partitioning between matrix and chondrules. Tungsten is not abundant enough to have driven its own isotopic partitioning, but if tungsten were correlated with iron,…
Protoplanetary disks can exhibit asymmetric temperature variations due to phenomena such as shadows cast by the inner disk or localized heating by young planets. We investigate the disk features induced by these asymmetric temperature…
The temperatures of observed protoplanetary disks are not sufficiently high to produce the accretion rate needed to form stars, nor are they sufficient to explain the volatile depletion patterns in CM, CO, and CV chondrites and terrestrial…
The CM carbonaceous chondrite meteorites provide a record of low temperature aqueous reactions in the early solar system. A number of CM chondrites also experienced short-lived, post-hydration thermal metamorphism at temperatures of 200C to…
Recent studies of chondrites have found a tungsten isotopic anomaly between chondrules and matrix. Given the refractory nature of tungsten, this implies that W was carried into the solar nebula by at least two distinct families of pre-solar…
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…
The origin of the reservoirs of water on Earth is debated. The Earth's crust may contain at least three times more water than the oceans. This crust water is found in the form of phyllosilicates, whose origin probably differs from that of…
We present a plausible and coherent view of the evolution of the protosolar disk that is consistent with the cosmochemical constraints and compatible with observations of other protoplanetary disks and sophisticated numerical simulations.…