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What does the fine-scale petrography of IDPs reveal about grain formation and evolution in the early solar system?The 'pyroxene' interplanetary dust particles (IDP's) may be the best samples for investigation of primordial grain-forming reactions because they appear to have experienced negligible post-accretional alteration. They are likely to continue to yield information about gas-to-solid condensation and other grain-forming reactions that may have occurred either in the solar nebular or presolar interstellar environments. An immediate challenge lies in understanding the nanometer-scale petrography of the ultrafine-grained aggregates in 'pyroxene' IDP's. Whether these aggregates contain components from diverse grain-forming environments may ultimately be answered by systematic petrographic studies using electron microscopes capable of high spatial resolution microanalysis. It may be more difficult to decipher evidence of grain formation and evolution in 'olivine' and 'layer silicate' IDP's because they appear to have experienced post-accretional alteration. Most of the studied 'olivine' IDPs have been subjected to heating and equilibration, perhaps during atmospheric entry, while the 'layer silicate' IDP's have experienced aqueous alteration.
Document ID
19950004535
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Bradley, John
(MVA, Inc. Norcross, GA, United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Inst., Workshop on the Analysis of Interplanetary Dust Particles
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
95N10948
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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