Molecular Foundry Seminar

"A nanoscale view of the solar system "

Zack Gainsforth Space Sciences Laboratory, UCB
Tuesday, January 17th @ 1:00 pm, Bldg. 67 - 3111

View the Foundry Seminar Schedule

Invited by Virginia Altoe and the Imaging and Manipulation Facility

Abstract:

NASA's Stardust mission is the first sample return mission to return samples to Earth from a known, specific extraterrestrial body since the Apollo era. Samples from Comet Wild-2 are only recently available for examination in the laboratory and are changing our view of the early solar system and its formation. Here we discuss SEM, TEM, SIMS and synchrotron investigations of a cometary sample that formed from a liquidus in vacuum and rapidly crystallized under disequilibrium conditions (chondrule). We have determined the formation conditions of this particle, and placed strong constraints on the date of formation using the Al-Mg radioisotope system with wonderful implications for the formation of Jupiter and early solar system mixing models.