March 29, 2018
Research Highlight
Details of the Solar System's Oldest Dated Objects
A study of calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) from the Murchison meteorite is helping scientists better understand their origin and evolution. CAIs formed in our solar system and are the oldest such objects that have been dated. The results indicate that the CAIs in the study may not have originated from single-stage melt evaporation. Instead, they may have been formed by processes over a longer period time than previously thought, and over multiple stages in the evolution of the solar nebula.
CAIs and other components of meteorites are windows into the history of the Solar System. Studying how our solar system formed and evolved can help astronomers better understand if and how distant systems could harbor habitable worlds similar to Earth.
A fragment of the Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia in 1969.Image credit: NASA History Office, A Meeting with the Universe: Chapter 6-3.
The paper, “A multi-element isotopic study of refractory FUN and F CAIs: Mass-dependent and mass-independent isotope effects,” was published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The work was supported through the Laboratory Analysis of Returned Samples (LARS) Program. The NASA Astrobiology Program provides resources for this and other Research and Analysis programs within the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) that solicit proposals relevant to astrobiology research.