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Results for “Cosmic Dust”

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At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
PubMed1997

Evolution of the outgassing of comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) from radio observations.

Spectra obtained from ground-based radio telescopes show the progressive release of CO, CH3OH, HCN, H2O (from OH), H2S, CS, H2CO, CH3CN, and HNC as comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 01) approached the sun from 6.9 to 1.4 astronomical units (AU). The more volatile species were relatively more abundant in the coma far from the sun, but there was no direct correlation between overabundance and volatility. Evidence for H2O sublimation from icy grains was seen beyond 3.5 AU from the sun. The change from a CO-driven coma to an H2O-driven coma occurred at about 3 AU. The gas outflow velocity and temperature increased as Hale-Bopp approached the sun.

Carbon↗
PubMed2000

The formation and early evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.

Recent observations indicate that the Milky Way may have formed by aggregation of gas and stars from a reservoir of preexisting small galaxies in the local universe. The process probably began more than 12 billion years ago with material of different original angular momentum following two separate evolutionary lines, one into the slowly rotating halo and central bulge and the other into the rapidly rotating disk. The existence of distinct thick and thin disks shows that continuing mergers of satellite galaxies likely also determined the early evolution of the main structural component of the luminous Galaxy.

Astronomical Phenomena↗
PubMed2000

Titanium carbide nanocrystals in circumstellar environments.

Meteorites contain micrometer-sized graphite grains with embedded titanium carbide grains. Although isotopic analysis identifies asymptotic giant branch stars as the birth sites of these grains, there is no direct observational identification of these grains in astronomical sources. We report that infrared wavelength spectra of gas-phase titanium carbide nanocrystals derived in the laboratory show a prominent feature at a wavelength of 20.1 micrometers, which compares well to a similar feature in observed spectra of postasymptotic giant branch stars. It is concluded that titanium carbide forms during a short (approximately 100 years) phase of catastrophic mass loss (>0.001 solar masses per year) in dying, low-mass stars.

Astronomical Phenomena↗
PubMed1998

Delivery of extraterrestrial amino acids to the primitive Earth. Exposure experiments in Earth orbit.

A large collection of micrometeorites has been recently extracted from Antarctic old blue ice. In the 50 to 100 micrometers size range, the carbonaceous micrometeorites represent 80% of the samples and contain 2% of carbon. They might have brought more carbon to the surface of the primitive Earth than that involved in the present surficial biomass. Amino acids such as "-amino isobutyric acid have been identified in these Antarctic micrometeorites. Enantiomeric excesses of L-amino acids have been detected in the Murchison meteorite. A large fraction of homochiral amino acids might have been delivered to the primitive Earth via meteorites and micrometeorites. Space technology in Earth orbit offers a unique opportunity to study the behaviour of amino acids required for the development of primitive life when they are exposed to space conditions, either free or associated with tiny mineral grains mimicking the micrometeorites. Our objectives are to demonstrate that porous mineral material protects amino acids in space from photolysis and racemization (the conversion of L-amino acids into a mixture of L- and D-molecules) and to test whether photosensitive amino acids derivatives can polymerize in mineral grains under space conditions. The results obtained in BIOPAN-1 and BIOPAN-2 exposure experiments on board unmanned satellite FOTON are presented.

Aluminum Silicates↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Chemistry between the stars.

Life--as we know it--is a chemical process, based on water and carbon compounds. Complex organic molecules are made primarily from the biogenic elements--carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur--that formed deep within massive ancient stars. How did these elements travel from their stellar birthplaces across time and space to make up the life-form that is reading these words? In this article, we'll take a look at the chemical processes that set the stage for the origin of life.

Astronomical Phenomena↗
PubMed1992

Hydrogen cyanide polymerization: a preferred cosmochemical pathway.

Current research in cosmochemistry shows that crude organic solids of high molecular weight are readily formed in planetary, interplanetary and interstellar environments. Underlying much of this ubiquitous chemistry is a low energy route leading directly to the synthesis of hydrogen cyanide and its polymers. Evidence from laboratory and extraterrestrial investigations suggests that these polymers plus water yield heteropolypeptides, a truly universal process that accounts not only for the past synthesis of protein ancestors on Earth but also for reactions proceeding elsewhere today within our solar system, on planetary bodies and satellites around other stars and in the dusty molecular clouds of spiral galaxies. The existence of this preferred pathway - hydrogen cyanide polymerization - surely increases greatly the probability that carbon-based life is widespread in the universe.

Amino Acids↗
PubMed1992

Chemistry of the interstellar medium--an evolutionary dead end?

An analysis of the experimental data available and of the present theoretical concepts shows that even the initial physicochemical chemical precellular stages of biological evolution are impossible in the interstellar medium, while biomonomers possibly formed on asteroids and comets might have participated after transportation to the Earth in the final stages of the origin of the first precellular biological structures and then in the first living cells.

Aluminum Silicates↗
PubMed1996

Isotopic anomalies in extraterrestrial grains.

Isotopic compositions are referred to as anomalous if the isotopic ratios measured cannot be related to the terrestrial (solar) composition of a given element. While small effects close to the resolution of mass spectrometric techniques can have ambiguous origins, the discovery of large isotopic anomalies in inclusions and grains from primitive meteorites suggests that material from distinct sites of stellar nucleosynthesis has been preserved. Refractory inclusions, which are predominantly composed of the refractory oxides of Al, Ca, Ti, and Mg, in chondritic meteorites commonly have excesses in the heaviest isotopes of Ca, Ti, and Cr which are inferred to have been produced in a supernova. Refractory inclusions also contain excess 26Mg from short lived 26Al decay. However, despite the isotopic anomalies indicating the preservation of distinct nucleosynthetic sites, refractory inclusions have been processed in the solar system and are not interstellar grains. Carbon (graphite and diamond) and silicon carbide grains from the same meteorites also have large isotopic anomalies but these phases are not stable in the oxidized solar nebula which suggests that they are presolar and formed in the circumstellar atmospheres of carbon-rich stars. Diamond has a characteristic signature enriched in the lightest and heaviest isotopes of Xe, and graphite shows a wide range in C isotopic compositions. SiC commonly has C and N isotopic signatures which are characteristic of H-burning in the C-N-O cycle in low-mass stars. Heavier elements such as Si, Ti, Xe, Ba, and Nd, carry an isotopic signature of the s-process. A minor population of SiC (known as Grains X, ca. 1%) are distinct in having decay products of short lived isotopes 26Al (now 26Mg), 44Ti (now 44Ca), and 49V (now 49Ti), as well as 28Si excesses which are characteristic of supernova nucleosynthesis. The preservation of these isotopic anomalies allows the examination of detailed nucleosynthetic pathways in stars.

Aluminum↗