Dust samples collected by high-flying aircraft in the upper atmosphere have yielded an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos, report scientists from NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington team in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The stratospheric dust includes minute grains that likely formed inside stars that lived and died long before the birth of our sun, as well as material from molecular clouds in interstellar space. This "ultra-primitive" material likely wafted into the atmosphere after the Earth passed through the trail of an Earth-crossing comet in 2003, giving scientists a rare opportunity to study cometary dust in the laboratory.

Continue reading "'Ultra-Primitive' Particles Found in Comet Dust" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

"Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."

Elsila is the lead author of a paper on this research accepted for publication in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The research will be presented during the meeting of the American Chemical Society at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington, DC, August 16.

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Members of the NAI community are cordially invited to submit abstracts to Session P13 of the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco in December. Conveners are seeking recent measurements, or experimental or theoretical results, relating to the relationship between structure and isotopic anomalies of the organic matter in extraterrestrial materials such as meteorites, IDPs, and Stardust samples.

For more information see http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/program/scientific_session_search.php?show=detail&sessid=401 Abstract Submissions will be open by July 30 and close September 3.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comets are the deep freezers of dust and ices extant in the early solar nebula at the time of the formation of the giant planets. Astromineralogy is the study of the chemical and structural properties of the dust grains. Studying the dust mineralogy in comets and protoplanetary disks, and, in particular, the amorphous and crystalline silicates, probes the relative abundances of interstellar grains and grains thermally altered or condensed in the inner hot regions of disks, respectively. Research combines analysis and modeling of Spitzer and ground-based spectroscopy of comets as well as radiative transfer modeling of protoplanetary disks to further our understanding of the thermal processing and radial transport of dust in protoplanetary disks at the early epochs of planetesimal formation. Deadline: 5:00 PM EST February 1, 2009. http://fellowships.hq.nasa.gov/gsrp/research/detail.cfm?oppID=30

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nov 5 – 7, 2007, Kauai, HI

This interdisciplinary meeting is aimed at understanding the chronology of the processes in the early solar system as revealed by meteorites. This includes the astrophysical setting of solar system formation, the origin of short-lived radioisotopes, and the chronology of nebular and asteroidal processes: formation of chondrules, refractory inclusions and matrices of primitive chondrites, timing of accretion and thermal processing (aqueous alteration, thermal metamorphism, and igneous differentiation) of asteroids and comets.

For more information: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/metchron2007/metchron2007.1st.shtml [Source: NAI Newsletter]

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August 13, 2009

A rehearsal flight of one of two aircraft will take off from Moffett Field to observe the Perseid meteor shower early on Monday, August 13. Scientists plan to carry their equipment onto the airplanes during the rehearsal and mission flights, without mounting the instruments within the aircraft.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In 83 B.C., a comet, now called Keiss, passed by the sun and ejected some bits of comet material. Astronomers expect the Aurigid meteor shower on Sept. 1, 2007, a result from Keiss comet’s earlier encounter with the sun in 83 B.C., to be spectacular.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A special issue of Science (Dec 15) includes several papers reporting on various aspects of Stardust sample analysis including an organics survey, isotopic and elemental compositions, mineralogy and petrology, and infrared spectroscopy. Many NAI researchers contributed to this comprehensive analytical campaign, including members of NAI's Teams at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA's Ames Research Center and Goddard Space Flight Center, and NAI's Alumni Team at the University of Washington. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Follow along as scientists from NAI's University of Hawai'i Team go on expedition with the NSF/NASA-sponsored Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program. View photos, read about the team and their mission, and stay current with regular dispatches from the "Streets of McMurdo."

Continue reading "AI Researchers Search for Meteorites in Antarctica" »

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Researchers from NAI's NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Team and their colleagues publish their analysis of two meteorites in the current issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Their study revealed a suite of amino acids present in the meteorites that are not present in the Antarctic ice on which they were found. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University is pleased to announce the 40th Anniversary of the Nininger Award for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing research in meteoritical sciences.

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