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PubMed1993

A search for life on Earth from the Galileo spacecraft.

In its December 1990 fly-by of Earth, the Galileo spacecraft found evidence of abundant gaseous oxygen, a widely distributed surface pigment with a sharp absorption edge in the red part of the visible spectrum, and atmospheric methane in extreme thermodynamic disequilibrium; together, these are strongly suggestive of life on Earth. Moreover, the presence of narrow-band, pulsed, amplitude-modulated radio transmission seems uniquely attributable to intelligence. These observations constitute a control experiment for the serach for extraterrestrial life by modern interplanetary spacecraft.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1994

Fullerenes in an impact crater on the LDEF spacecraft.

The fullerenes C60 and C70 have been found to occur naturally on Earth and have also been invoked to explain features in the absorption spectra of interstellar clouds. But no definitive spectroscopic evidence exists for fullerenes in space and attempts to find fullerenes in carbonaceous chondrites have been unsuccessful. Here we report the observation of fullerenes associated with carbonaceous impact residue in a crater on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) spacecraft. Laser ionization mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy indicate the presence of fullerenes in the crater and in adjacent ejecta. Man-made fullerenes survive experimental hypervelocity (approximately 6.1 km s-1) impacts into aluminium targets, suggesting that space fullerenes contained in a carbonaceous micrometeorite could have survived the LDEF impact at velocities towards the lower end of the natural particle encounter range (<13 km s-1). We also demonstrate that the fullerenes were unlikely to have formed as instrumental artefacts, nor are they present as contaminants. Although we cannot specify the origin of the fullerenes with certainty, the most plausible source is the chondritic impactor. If, alternatively, the impact produced the fullerenes in situ on LDEF, then this suggests a viable mechanism for fullerene production in space.

Aluminum↗
PubMed1995

Production and evolution of light elements in active star-forming regions.

Collisions between cosmic rays (energetic protons and alpha-particles) and carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in the interstellar medium have been considered to be the main source of lithium, beryllium and boron, through fragmentation of the larger nuclei. But this mechanism is unable to account for the observed Solar System abundances of the isotopes 7Li and 11B. The recent detection of an excess of gamma-rays in the direction of the star-forming region in the Orion cloud has been interpreted as arising from the excitation of carbon and oxygen nuclei ejected from supernovae when they collide with the surrounding gas, which is primarily molecular and atomic hydrogen. Here we investigate the consequences of the two-body interactions of the ejected carbon and oxygen nuclei (and the alpha-particles ejected with them) with the hydrogen and helium in the surrounding gas, using a model developed previously. We show that these interactions offer a way to make lithium, beryllium and boron that is independent of the abundance of heavy elements in the surrounding medium. Such supernova-driven interactions, combined with the effect of galactic cosmic rays, can explain the observed Solar System abundances of these light elements.

Beryllium↗
PubMed1995

Photodesorption from low-temperature water ice in interstellar and circumsolar grains.

Dust grains in the interstellar medium and the outer Solar System commonly have a coating of water ice, which affects their optical properties and surface chemistry. The thickness of these icy mantles may be determined in part by the extent of photodesorption (photosputtering) by background ultraviolet radiation. But this process is poorly understood, with theoretical estimates of the photodesorption rate spanning several orders of magnitude. Here we report measurements of the absolute ultraviolet photodesorption yield of low-temperature water ice. Our results indicate that the rate of photodesorption is appreciable. In particular, it can account for the absence of icy mantles on grains in diffuse interstellar clouds, it exceeds solar-wind ion erosion and sublimation in the outer Solar System, and it is important in determining the lifetimes of icy mantles in dense molecular clouds.

Extraterrestrial Environment↗
PubMed1995

Inhibition of giant-planet formation by rapid gas depletion around young stars.

Although stars form from clouds of gas and dust, there are insignificant amounts of gas around ordinary (Sun-like) stars. This suggests that hydrogen and helium, the primary constituents of planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, are not easily retained in orbit as a star matures. The gas-giant planets in the Solar System must therefore have formed rapidly. Models of their formation generally suggest that a solid core formed in < or = 10(6) yr, followed by the accretion of the massive gaseous envelope in approximately 10(7) yr (refs 1-5). But how and when the gas of the solar nebula dissipated, and how this compares with the predicted timescale of gas-giant formation, remains unclear, in part because direct observations of circumstellar gas have been made only for stars either younger or older than the critical range of 10(6)-10(7) yr (refs 8-15). Here we report observations of the molecular gas surrounding 20 stars whose ages are likely to be in this range. The gas dissipates rapidly; after a few million years the mass remaining is typically much less than the mass of Jupiter. Thus, if gas-giant planets are common in the Galaxy, they must form even more quickly than present models suggest.

Extraterrestrial Environment↗
PubMed1995

Chemical and thermal response of Jupiter's atmosphere following the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

In July 1994, the collisions of the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter resulted in dramatic changes in the planet's atmosphere. Observations of the events suggest that the composition and thermal properties of the atmosphere were considerably modified at the impact sites, with the changes persisting for times lasting from minutes to weeks (see, for example, refs 1-4). Here we report observations of the impact sites at millimetre wave-lengths, which reveal strong emission lines associated with carbon monoxide, carbonyl sulphide and carbon monosulphide. The abundance of carbon monoxide in the jovian atmosphere is normally very low; carbonyl sulphide and carbon monosulphide, on the other hand, have not hitherto been detected. We find that the largest fragments (G and K) each produced approximately 10(14) g of carbon monoxide, 3 x 10(12) g of carbonyl sulphide and 3 x 10(11) g of carbon monosulphide, most probably by shock-induced chemical reactions. Our observations also place firm constraints on the thermal response of Jupiter's stratosphere to the impacts.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1995

Detection of an oxygen atmosphere on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Europa, the second large satellite out from Jupiter, is roughly the size of Earth's Moon, but unlike the Moon, it has water ice on its surface. There have been suggestions that an oxygen atmosphere should accumulate around such a body, through reactions which break up the water molecules and form molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The lighter H2 molecules would escape from Europa relatively easily, leaving behind an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Here we report the detection of atomic oxygen emission from Europa, which we interpret as being produced by the simultaneous dissociation and excitation of atmospheric O2 by electrons from Jupiter's magnetosphere. Europa's molecular oxygen atmosphere is very tenuous, with a surface pressure about 10(-11) that of the Earth's atmosphere at sea level.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1995

Evolution of water reservoirs on Mars from D/H ratios in the atmosphere and crust.

Ancient fluvial networks on the surface of Mars suggest that it was warm and wet over three billion years ago. Surface features resembling massive outflow channels provide evidence that, even more recently, the martian crust contained the equivalent of a planet-wide reservoir of water several hundred metres deep. But arguments based on the isotopic fraction and present-day escape rate of hydrogen in the martian atmosphere require only 0.5 metres of crustal water today and about six metres in the past. An additional constraint on the evolution of the isotopic composition of martian water has recently been obtained from measurements of the deuterium to hydrogen ratio of hydrous minerals in the SNC meteorites--meteorites that almost certainly originated on Mars. Here I show that these new data require that the modern crustal reservoirs of martian water must be quite large, at least several metres in global-equivalent depth. The deuterium enrichment of the present martian atmosphere then implies that the reservoir of crustal water on ancient Mars was several hundred metres deep, consistent with the geological evidence.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1995

Waves from the collisions of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter.

Observations of the collisions of the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter provided an unprecedented opportunity to probe the depths of the planet's atmosphere. Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed circular rings surrounding five of the impact sites. The rings were observed for up to 2.5 hours after the impacts and spread at a constant velocity of 450 m s-1. There are three types of disturbance that might explain these observations: acoustic waves trapped at the tropopause temperature minimum, gravity waves propagating vertically and horizontally in the stratosphere, and gravity waves trapped in a stable layer which acts as a horizontal waveguide and is located within the hypothesized tropospheric water cloud. Here we show that only the last of these phenomena can match the speed and relative amplitude of the observed waves, with the requirement that the impacts were deep and the stability of the trapping layer is large. The origin of the stable layer is still uncertain, but if it is produced by moist convection in the water cloud, then the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen on Jupiter must be surprisingly large--approximately ten times that on the Sun.

Atmosphere↗