Paper: Daily Herald City: Chicago, Illinois Date: Monday, January 4, 1988 Page: Neighbor Section, Page 1
Meteorite sheds light on origins of galaxy
Associated Press
NEW YORK - A meteorite has yielded extremely hard specks that roamed the cosmos before the sun and planets formed, and they may hold clues about distant stars and the solar system's birth, scientists say.
The grains of silicon carbide offer "a bit of a peck at the rest of the galaxy," said Edward Anders, professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago.
The material was apparently ejected by stars as gas, which then cooled to form the grains millions of years before the sun and planets appeared, he said in a recent telephone interview.
The specks were captured in the condensing cloud of gas and dust that formed the sun, planets and meteors.
Study of the specks may help in estimating how many stars contributed to the material that formed the solar system, Andecs said. Scientists believe most of the material came from the explosion of one supernova, he said.
The specks also may tell about conditions in the nuclear furnaces of distant stars, he said. While the stars that produced the grains are long extinct, the lessons of the grains would apply to similar stars now shining, he said.
Researchers said the particles probably came from stars in the "red giant" phase, one of the final stages in the life of a normal star. Preliminary study suggests they came from at least three stars or three regions of a single star, Anders said.
The specks range in size up to a micron, which is about one-hundredth the width of a human hair.
Discovery of the silicon carbide specks in a meteorite found in Australia was reported in a recent issue of the British journal Nature by Anders and colleagues at the University of Chicago, and Washington University and the Monsanto Research Center in St. Louis.
On Earth, silicon carbide is manufactured for use as an abrasive Scientists had detected silicon in outer space, but this is the first known delivery to Earth via meteorite, researchers said.
Materials from different stars often mixed together in the condensing cloud that formed the solar system, making it harder to analyze the clues they hold about individual stars, said meteorite expert John T. Wasson.
But with the new study, "it appears here we have some of the most pristine material that has even been discovered," said Wasson.
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I guess this is referring to Murchison...can someone confirm this.
Clear Skies, Mark Bostick Wichita, Kansas http://www.meteoritearticles.com http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com http://www.imca.cc
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PDF copy of this article, and most I post (and about 1/2 of those on my website), is available upon e-mail request.
The NPA in the subject line, stands for Newspaper Article. The old list server allowed us a search feature the current does not, so I guess this is more for quick reference and shortening the subject line now.
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