IAU Colloquium 168
Cometary Nuclei in Space and Time

Nanjing, China
May 18-22, 1998

Electronically-submitted Abstracts of Participants


X-wind, Refractory IDPs, and Cometary Nuclei
Typhoon Lee(1), Frank H. Shu(2), Hsien Shang(2), and Al Glassgold(3)
(1) Inst. Earth Sci., and ASIAA, Academia Sinica, Taipei, TAIWAN (2) Dept. Astronomy, Univ. California, Berkeley, CA USA (3) Dept. Physics, New York Un iv., New York, NY USA

The discovery of meteoritic pre-solar grains (SiC, graphite, corundum) carrying the clear isotopic signature of AGB stars best demonstrates the nucleosynthetic heterogeneity for solar matter before mixing. It is difficult to homogenize these components thermally in comets since their temperature has stayed far below 1000 C. In fact, their high D/H suggests that they have even preserved much low temperature interstellar influence. Thus, it is surprising that refractory grains ( Mg-silicates and Ca-Al rich minerals) in inter-planetary particles (IDPs) and micro-meteorites have normal Mg isotopic composition, unremarkable oxygen isotopic ratios, and low or zero Al-26. It is difficult to imagine how to transport these material from inner solar system where temperature was high enough to homogenize the pre-solar components to sites beyond the snow line. Our recent X-wind model proposes that balls of pre-solar dusts were launched magnetically from the inner edge of the solar nebula by bi-polar outflows and flash-heated then solidified to form CAI and chondrules. They fell back to the nebula at all distances from the sun. We thus expect that sample return missions should find these isotopically normal refractory materials directly from cometary nuclei. In our model, Al-26 can be made by solar flares of the He-3-rich type. The newly found He-3 rich IDPs with flare tracks could be a supporting evidence for our model.



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