Related papers: Organics in the Solar System
Identifying the source of Earth's water is central to understanding the origins of life-fostering environments and to assessing the prevalence of such environments in space. Water throughout the solar system exhibits deuterium-to-hydrogen…
Knowledge of the composition of material that will form planets is crucial to understand planetary diversity and the occurrence of potentially habitable planets. Ultimately, it is the chemistry in circumstellar disks that determines the…
Understanding the concept of habitability is related to an evolutionary knowledge of the particular planet-in-question. Additional indications so-called "systemic aspects" of the planetary system as a whole governs a particular planet's…
One in every two atoms in the Earth, Mars, and the Moon is oxygen; it is the third most abundant element in the solar system. The oxygen isotopic compositions of the terrestrial planets are different from those of the Sun and demonstrate…
We review the reservoirs of methane clathrates that may exist in the different bodies of the Solar System. Methane was formed in the interstellar medium prior to having been embedded in the protosolar nebula gas phase. This molecule was…
We investigate whether it is possible that viable microbes could have been transported to Earth from the planets in extra-solar systems by means of natural vehicles such as ejecta expelled by comet or asteroid impacts on such planets. The…
Biologically relevant abiotic extraterrestrial soluble organic matter (SOM) has been widely investigated to study the origin of life and the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks. Synthesis of biologically relevant organics, in…
This paper reviews our current understanding of the possible birth environments of our Solar System. Since most stars form within groups and clusters, the question becomes one of determining the nature of the birth aggregate of the Sun.…
By plotting empirical chemical element abundances on Earth relative to the Sun and normalized to silicon versus their first ionization potentials, we confirm the existence of a correlation reported earlier. To explain this, we develop a…
Stellar elemental abundances direct impact planetary interior structure and mineralogy, surface composition, and life. However, the different communities that are necessary for planetary habitability exploration (astrophysics, planetary…
White dwarf planetary systems provide a unique way to measure the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. Extrasolar asteroids/comets/moons which have survived the evolution of their host star can end up in the atmosphere of the white…
A planetary system may undergo significant radial rearrangement during the early part of its lifetime. Planet migration can come about through interaction with the surrounding planetesimal disk and the gas disk--while the latter is still…
Asteroids and comets are remnants from the era of Solar System formation over 4.5 billion years ago, and therefore allow us to address two fundamental questions in astronomy: what was the nature of our protoplanetary disk, and how did the…
The Sun provides a standard reference against which we compare the chemical abundances found anywhere else in the Universe. Nevertheless, there is not a unique 'solar' composition, since the chemical abundances found in the solar interior,…
Extensive photometric stellar surveys show that many main sequence stars show emission at infrared and longer wavelengths that is in excess of the stellar photosphere; this emission is thought to arise from circumstellar dust. The presence…
The recent discovery of terrestrial-type organic species such as methyl formate and dimethyl ether in the cold interstellar gas has proved that the formation of organic matter in the Galaxy begins at a much earlier stage of star formation…
In order to examine how the terrestrial life emerged, a number of laboratory experiments have been conducted since the 1950s. Methane has been one of the key molecules in these studies. In earlier studies, strongly reducing gas mixtures…
Most stars are formed in a cluster or association, where the number density of stars can be high. This means that a large fraction of initially-single stars will undergo close encounters with other stars and/or exchange into binaries. We…
Ecosystems are systems where energy flows and material cycles are maintained in an apparently stable, but non-equilibrium state through a process of self-regulation. Such a definition does just apply to biological systems, it can also apply…
This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2009 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing…