When
3:45 p.m., Sept. 2, 2014
Where
Kuiper Space Sciences 312
Dr. Maitrayee Bose
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Arizona State University
Presolar Minerals and Organics in Meteorites
Abstract:
The first part of the talk will be on presolar mineral grains formed in circumstellar environments and in supernova ejecta, incorporated into the molecular cloud from which our solar system originated, and identified in extraterrestrial materials. Laboratory studies of these grains provide nucleosynthetic and physical constraints on the processes occurring in stars. Presolar silicates that are the most abundant phase in the presolar grain inventory can also provide opportunities to investigate secondary processes taking place in the parent bodies in which they are found.
The second part of the talk will be on the study of organic materials, primarily the kerogen-like macromolecules, which can be an important source of prebiotic molecules essential to life on Earth. Although the location and exact mechanism for the production of large H and N isotopic anomalies associated with the insoluble macromolecules are still under debate, viable environments include low-temperature ion-molecule reactions in the gas phase and catalytic processes on dust grains either in the interstellar medium or outer protoplanetary disks. Possible relation between the complex chemistry that lead to the formation of meteoritic insoluble materials and the meteorite mineralogy is being assessed.
I will review what we have learned about and from presolar minerals and organics since the last decade.
Host: Tom Zega
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Arizona State University
Presolar Minerals and Organics in Meteorites
Abstract:
The first part of the talk will be on presolar mineral grains formed in circumstellar environments and in supernova ejecta, incorporated into the molecular cloud from which our solar system originated, and identified in extraterrestrial materials. Laboratory studies of these grains provide nucleosynthetic and physical constraints on the processes occurring in stars. Presolar silicates that are the most abundant phase in the presolar grain inventory can also provide opportunities to investigate secondary processes taking place in the parent bodies in which they are found.
The second part of the talk will be on the study of organic materials, primarily the kerogen-like macromolecules, which can be an important source of prebiotic molecules essential to life on Earth. Although the location and exact mechanism for the production of large H and N isotopic anomalies associated with the insoluble macromolecules are still under debate, viable environments include low-temperature ion-molecule reactions in the gas phase and catalytic processes on dust grains either in the interstellar medium or outer protoplanetary disks. Possible relation between the complex chemistry that lead to the formation of meteoritic insoluble materials and the meteorite mineralogy is being assessed.
I will review what we have learned about and from presolar minerals and organics since the last decade.
Host: Tom Zega
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