Anomalies In Makeup Of Interplanetary Dust Particle
Posted by DA Morgan on Feb 27, 2004 at 13:26
(216.162.218.178)Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Washington University have seen carbon and nitrogen anomalies on a particle of interplanetary dust that provides a clue as to how interstellar organic matter was incorporated into the solar system.
Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) gathered from the Earth's stratosphere are complex collections of primitive solar system material and carry various isotopic anomalies. Using an ion microprobe that allows isotopic imaging at a scale of 100 nanometers, the astrophysicists conducted simultaneous carbon and nitrogen isotopic imaging measurements of the IDP, nicknamed Benavente. They noticed that the isotope carbon 13 decreased while nitrogen 15 increased in Benavente.
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