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Isotope astrophysics

Sorting stardust

Nature volume 395, pages 325–327 (1998)Cite this article

*The 61st Meteoritical Society meeting, Dublin, Ireland, 27-31 July 1998.

We believe that these diamonds may be pre-solar because of their peculiar isotopic composition. The anomalous isotope ratios of trace elements in the crystals imply that they cannot have formed from the well-mixed material that makes up the bulk of the Solar System. Instead, at least some of the diamonds must have formed around other stars.They survived collisions and bombardment by cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and in the contracting disk of the early Solar System, and remain preserved in some chondrites. Those that fall to Earth and are collected provide an opportunity to study stardust in the laboratory.

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Figure 1: A diamond of about 10−7 carats.

T. L. DAULTON/MATS SCI. DIV., ARGONNE NATL LAB.

Notes

  1. *The 61st Meteoritical Society meeting, Dublin, Ireland, 27-31 July 1998.

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  1. the Department of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    Sara S. Russell

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  1. Sara S. Russell
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Russell, S. Sorting stardust. Nature 395, 325–327 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/26348

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