Related papers: Origin of uranium isotope variations in early sola…
The composition of the early Solar System can be inferred from meteorites. Many elements heavier than iron were formed by the rapid neutron-capture process (r process), but the astrophysical sources where this occurred remain poorly…
Isotope anomalies provide important information about early solar system evolution. Here we report molybdenum isotope abundances determined in samples of various meteorite classes. There is no fractionation of molybdenum isotopes in our…
Neutron-rich isotopes with masses near that of iron are produced in type Ia and II supernovae. Traces of such nucleosynthesis are found in primitive meteorites in the form of variations in the isotopic abundance of 54Cr, the most…
Stardust grains recovered from meteorites provide high-precision snapshots of the isotopic composition of the stellar environment in which they formed. Attributing their origin to specific types of stars, however, often proves difficult.…
Isotopic abundances of short-lived radionuclides such as 26Al provide the most precise chronometers of events in the early solar system, provided that they were initially homogeneously distributed. On the other hand, the abundances of the…
We present results from a model of oxygen isotopic anomaly production through selective photodissociation of CO within the collapsing proto-Solar cloud. Our model produces a proto-Sun with a wide range of Delta_17O values depending on the…
Isotope anomalies among planetary bodies provide key constraints on planetary genetics and the Solar System's dynamical evolution. However, to unlock the full potential of these anomalies for constraining the processing, mixing, and…
The presence or absence of variations in the mass-independent abundances of Si isotopes in bulk meteorites provides important clues concerning the evolution of the early solar system. No Si isotopic anomalies have been found within the…
The bulk chemical compositions of planets are uncertain, even for major elements such as Mg and Si. This is due to the fact that the samples available for study all originate from relatively shallow depths. Comparison of the stable isotope…
The nucleus of uranium-235 ($^{235}$U) possesses an exceptionally low-energy isomeric state, $^{235m}$U. Unlike most radioactive nuclides, whose nuclear-decay half-lives are constant, the half-life of $^{235m}$U varies with its chemical…
Radioisotopic ages for meteorites and their components provide constraints on the evolution of small bodies: timescales of accretion, thermal and aqueous metamorphism, differentiation, cooling and impact metamorphism. Realising that the…
The low luminosity of Uranus is a long-standing challenge in planetary science. Simple adiabatic models are inconsistent with the measured luminosity, which indicates that Uranus is non-adiabatic because it has thermal boundary layers…
We investigate the origin in the early Solar System of the short-lived radionuclide 244Pu (with a half life of 80 Myr) produced by the rapid (r) neutron-capture process. We consider two large sets of r-process nucleosynthesis models and…
Recent improvements in stellar models for intermediate-mass and massive stars are recalled, together with their expectations for the synthesis of radioactive nuclei of lifetime $\tau \lesssim 25$ Myr, in order to re-examine the origins of…
Planetary materials show systematic variations in their nucleosynthetic isotope compositions that resonate with orbital distance. The origin of this pattern remains debated, limiting how these isotopic signatures can be used to trace the…
Understanding the origin of life-essential volatiles like N in the Solar System and beyond is critical to evaluate the potential habitability of rocky planets. Whether the inner Solar System planets accreted these volatiles from their…
Formation and evolution of water in the Solar System and the origin of water on Earth constitute one of the most interesting questions in astronomy. The prevailing hypothesis for the origin of water on Earth is by delivery through…
Meteorites, which are remnants of solar system formation, provide a direct glimpse into the dynamics and evolution of a young stellar object (YSO), namely our Sun. Much of our knowledge about the astrophysical context of the birth of the…
Nucleosynthetic isotopic anomalies in meteorites and planetary objects contribute to our understanding of the formation of the solar system. Isotope systematics of chondrites demonstrate the existence of a physical separation between…
Recently acquired evidence shows that extrasolar asteroids exhibit over a factor of 100 variation in the iron to aluminum abundance ratio. This large range likely is a consequence of igneous differentiation that resulted from heating…