Accretion rate of cosmic spherules measured at the South Pole

Abstract

Micrometeorites are terrestrially collected, extraterrestrial particles smaller than about 1 mm, which account for most of the mass being accreted to the Earth¹,². Compared with meteorites, micrometeorites more completely represent the Earth-crossing meteoroid complex³,⁴ and should include fragments of asteroids, comets, Mars and our Moon, as well as pre-solar and interstellar grains³,⁶. Previous measurements of the flux of micrometeoroids that survive to the Earth's surface have large uncertainties owing to the destruction of particles by weathering^7,8,9, inefficiencies in magnetic collection or separation techniques^7,8,9, low particle counts¹⁰,¹¹, poor age constraint^7,8,9,¹²,¹³ or highly variable concentrating processes¹²,¹³. Here we describe an attempt to circumvent these problems through the collection of thousands of well preserved and dated micrometeorites from the bottom of the South Pole water well, which supplies drinking water for the Scott–Amundsen station. Using this collection, we have determined precise estimates of the flux and mass distribution for 50–700-µm cosmic spherules (melted micrometeorites). Allowing for the expected abundance of unmelted micrometeorites¹⁴ in the samples, our results indicate that about 90% of the incoming mass of submillimetre particles evaporates during atmospheric entry. Our data indicate the loss of glass-rich and small stony spherules from deep-sea deposits⁷,⁸, and they provide constraints for models describing the survival probability of micrometeoroids¹⁵,¹⁶.