Related papers: Exploring refractory organics in extraterrestrial …
Debris disks embrace the formation and evolution histories of planetary systems. Recent detections of gas in these disks have received considerable attention, as its origin ties up ongoing disk evolution and the present composition of…
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…
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.…
Biomolecules can be synthesized in interstellar ice grains subject to UV radiation and cosmic rays. I show that on time scales of $\gtrsim 10^{6}$ years, these processes lead to the formation of large percolation clusters of organic…
Since in situ studies and interplanetary dust collections only provide a spatially limited amount of information about the interplanetary dust properties, it is of major importance to complete these studies with properties inferred from…
Because of their common origin, it was assumed that the composition of planet building blocks should, to a first order, correlate with stellar atmospheric composition, especially for refractory elements. In fact, information on the relative…
The abundances of elements in the Earth and the terrestrial planets provide the initial conditions for life and clues as to the history and formation of the Solar System. We follow the pioneering work of Bond et al. (2010) and combine…
An outstanding question of astrobiology is the link between the chemical composition of planets, comets, and other solar system bodies and the molecules formed in the interstellar medium. Understanding the chemical and physical evolution of…
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
A fundamental question in cometary science is whether the different dynamical classes of comets have different chemical compositions, which would reflect different initial conditions. From the ground or Earth orbit, radio and infrared…
The material that formed the present-day Solar System originated in feeding zones in the inner Solar Nebula located at distances within ~20 AU from the Sun, known as the planet-forming zone. Meteoritic and cometary material contain abundant…
Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical and chemical conditions occurring during exoplanet formation.…
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…
Organics, if they do exist on Europa, may only be present in trace amounts on the surface. NASA's upcoming mission Europa Clipper is going to provide global, high quality data of the surface of Europa in the near-infrared (NIR),…
Hydrocarbon organic material, as found in the interstellar medium, exists in complex mixtures of aromatic and aliphatic forms. It is considered to be originated from carbon enriched giant stars during their final stages of evolution, when…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…
Comets have similar compositions to interstellar medium ices, suggesting at least some of their molecules maybe inherited from an earlier stage of evolution. To investigate the degree to which this might have occurred we compare the…
Some planetary systems harbour debris disks containing planetesimals such as asteroids and comets. Collisions between such bodies produce small dust particles, the spectral features of which reveal their composition and, hence, that of…
The formation and growth of refractory matter on pre-existing interstellar dust grain surfaces was studied experimentally by annealing neon-ice matrices in which potential precursors of silicate grains (Mg and Fe atoms, SiO and SiO$_2$…
Meteorite matrices from primitive chondrites are an interplay of ingredients at the sub-micron scale, which requires analytical techniques with the nanometer spatial resolution to decipher the composition of individual components in their…