Astronomical context of Solar System formation from molybdenum isotopes in meteorite inclusions
Abstract
Calcium-aluminum–rich inclusions (CAIs) in meteorites are the first solids to have formed in the Solar System, defining the epoch of its birth on an absolute time scale. This provides a link between astronomical observations of star formation and cosmochemical studies of Solar System formation. We show that the distinct molybdenum isotopic compositions of CAIs cover almost the entire compositional range of material that formed in the protoplanetary disk. We propose that CAIs formed while the Sun was in transition from the protostellar to pre–main sequence (T Tauri) phase of star formation, placing Solar System formation within an astronomical context. Our results imply that the bulk of the material that formed the Sun and Solar System accreted within the CAI-forming epoch, which lasted less than 200,000 years.
Additional Information
© 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License. Received 14 October 2019; accepted 16 September 2020. We thank A. Bischoff for helpful discussions and J. Render and Q. Shollenberger for support and helpful comments on an early draft of this manuscript. We thank N. Marks and B. Jacobsen for assistance with the petrography. We acknowledge the efforts of U. Heitmann for the initial preparation of many of these samples. Allende CAI samples CAI 43 and BB8 were obtained from the collection of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) (New York, USA). D. S. Ebel and S. Wallace (Earth and Planetary Sciences, AMNH); R. Matthes, L. Schultz, and L. L. Pryer (Siemens Medical Solutions, Cary, NC); R. Smith (NC Museum of Natural Sciences); and J. Thorstenson (Duke University) are thanked for their support and for providing access to computerized tomography scanners. G.A.B. was supported by a Sofja Kovalevskaja award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as part of the Research Priority Program SPP 1385 supported T.S.K. (grant KR 4463/1) and T.K. (grant KL 1857/4). An Annette Kade Fellowship (to G.B.) supported characterization of two CAI samples. This study was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 with release number LLNL-JRNL-802017. Author contributions: G.A.B., C.B., and G.B. analyzed samples; G.A.B., C.B., T.S.K., and T.K. devised the project; and all authors contributed to interpretation of the data and writing the manuscript. The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data are available in tables S1 to S6. Newly measured CAIs were taken from fragments of the meteorites Allende, NWA 6870, and NWA 6717, all of which are curated at the Institut für Planetologie, University of Münster, Germany, except samples CAI 43 and BB8, which were obtained from a fragment of Allende curated at the AMNH, New York, USA. The CAI samples were consumed during the experiments.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - aaz8482_Brennecka_SM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 106692
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20201117-080611439
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- KR 4463/1
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- KL 1857/4
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- Annette Kade Fellowship
- DE-AC52-07NA27344
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
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2020-11-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field