Abundances of Ordinary Chondrites in Thermally Evolving Planetesimals

Shigeru Wakita1,2, Yasuhiro Hasegawa3, and Takaya Nozawa4
The Astrophysical Journal 863, 100 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad0a2]
1Center for Computational Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan
2Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan
3Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
4Division of Theoretical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan

Chondrites are some of the most primitive objects in the solar system, and they maintain a record of the degree of thermal metamorphism experienced in their parent bodies. This thermal history can be classified by the petrologic type. We investigate the thermal evolution of planetesimals to account for the current abundances (known as the fall statistics) of petrologic types 3–6 of ordinary chondrites. We carry out a number of numerical calculations in which formation times and sizes of planetesimals are taken as parameters. We find that planetesimals that form within 2.0 Myr after the formation of Ca-Al-rich inclusions (CAIs) can contain all petrologic types of ordinary chondrites. Our results also indicate that plausible scenarios of planetesimal formation, which are consistent with the fall statistics, are that planetesimals with radii larger than 60 km start to form around 2.0 Myr after CAIs and/or that ones with radii less than 50 km should be formed within 1.5 Myr after CAIs. Thus, thermal modeling of planetesimals is important for revealing the occurrence and amount of metamorphosed chondrites and for providing invaluable insights into planetesimal formation.

On the Origin of Early Solar System Radioactivities: Problems with the Asymptotic Giant Branch and Massive Star Scenarios

D. Vescovi1,2 et al. (>10)
The Astrophysical Journal 863, 115 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad191]
1Gran Sasso Science Institute, Viale Francesco Crispi, 7, I-67100 L’Aquila, Italy

Recent improvements in stellar models for intermediate-mass stars and massive stars (MSs) are recalled, together with their expectations for the synthesis of radioactive nuclei of lifetimes τ lesssim 25 Myr, in order to re-examine the origins of now extinct radioactivities that were alive in the solar nebula. The Galactic inheritance broadly explains most of them, especially if r-process nuclei are produced by neutron star merging, according to recent models. Instead, 26Al, 41Ca, 135Cs, and possibly 60Fe require nucleosynthetic events close to the solar formation. We outline the persisting difficulties to account for these nuclei by intermediate-mass stars (2 lesssim M/M  lesssim 7–8). Models of their final stages now predict the ubiquitous formation of a 13C reservoir as a neutron capture source; hence, even in the presence of 26Al production from deep mixing or hot bottom burning, the ratio 26Al/107Pd remains incompatible with measured data, with a large excess in 107Pd. This is shown for two recent approaches to deep mixing. Even a late contamination by an MS encounters problems. In fact, the inhomogeneous addition of supernova debris predicts nonmeasured excesses on stable isotopes. Revisions invoking specific low-mass supernovae and/or the sequential contamination of the presolar molecular cloud might be affected by similar problems, although our conclusions here are weakened by our schematic approach to the addition of SN ejecta. The limited parameter space that remains to be explored for solving this puzzle is discussed.

The Energetic Particle Environment of the Lunar Nearside: Influence of the Energetic Ions from Earth’s Bow Shock

Xiaojun Xu1,2, Qing Chang1, Qi Xu1, Vassilis Angelopoulos3, Yi Wang4, and Pingbing Zuo4
The Astrophysical Journal 863, 80 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad282]
1Space Science Institute, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao, People’s Republic of China
2Institute of Space Science and Technology, Nanchang University, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China
3Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
4Institute of Science and Applied Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

Energetic particles from Earth’s bow shock can frequently access the lunar orbit. These energetic particles are mainly ions. Since they are mostly field-aligned, they have much greater impacts on the lunar near side than on its far side. We present a statistical study of these upstream energetic ions at the lunar orbit using ARTEMIS observations. During the five-year time interval from 2012 to 2016, 496 energetic ion events with time durations ≥30 minutes were identified. The average duration of an event is about 1.93 hr. Most events occurred at the dawn-looking quadrants of Earth, showing an asymmetric dawn–dusk distribution in space. In 490 of the 496 events, the magnetic field lines directly extend to the bow shock. This is very important in order for energetic ions to arrive at the lunar orbit along field lines. The highest energies of these upstream energetic ions range from 101.5 to 658.5 keV based on the energy channels of ARTEMIS. The spatial distribution of the events depends on the highest energy. Events with higher energies tend to occur near the subsolar region and are related to greater AE indices, indicating stronger disturbances of the geomagnetosphere. By taking into account upstream energetic ions, in addition to galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles, our results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the energetic particle environment of the lunar near side.

Verification of the Flow Regimes Based on High-fidelity Observations of Bright Meteors

Manuel Moreno-Ibáñez1, Elizabeth A. Silber2, Maria Gritsevich3,4, and Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez1,5
The Astrophysical Journal 863, 174 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad334]
1Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Meteorites, Minor Bodies and Planetary Science Group, Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n E-08193 Cerdanyola del Vallés, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
2Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA
3Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2a, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland
4Institute of Physics and Technology, Ural Federal University, Mira str. 19. 620002 Ekaterinburg, Russia
5Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), C/ Gran Capitá, 2-4, Ed. Nexus, desp. 201, E-08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Infrasound monitoring has proved to be effective in detection of meteor-generated shock waves. When combined with optical observations of meteors, this technique is also reliable for detecting centimeter-sized meteoroids that usually ablate at high altitudes, thus offering relevant clues that open the exploration of the meteoroid flight regimes. Since a shock wave is formed as a result of a passage of the meteoroid through the atmosphere, the knowledge of the physical parameters of the surrounding gas around the meteoroid surface can be used to determine the meteor flow regime. This study analyzes the flow regimes of a data set of 24 centimeter-sized meteoroids for which well-constrained infrasound and photometric information is available. This is the first time that the flow regimes for meteoroids in this size range are validated from observations. From our approach, the Knudsen and Reynolds numbers are calculated, and two different flow regime evaluation approaches are compared in order to validate the theoretical formulation. The results demonstrate that a combination of fluid dynamic dimensionless parameters is needed to allow a better inclusion of the local physical processes of the phenomena.

A Subgrid Model for the Growth of Dust Particles in Hydrodynamical Simulations of Protoplanetary Disks

Tomas Tamfal, Joanna Dra̧żkowska, Lucio Mayer, and Clement Surville
The Astrophysical Journal 863, 97 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad1f4]
Center for Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology, Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland

We present the first 2D hydrodynamical finite-volume simulations in which dust is fully coupled with the gas, including its back-reaction onto it, and at the same time the dust size is evolving according to coagulation and fragmentation based on a subgrid model. The aim of this analysis is to present the differences occurring when dust evolution is included relative to simulations with fixed dust size, with and without an embedded Jupiter-mass planet that triggers gap formation. We use the two-fluid polar Godunov-type code RoSSBi developed by Surville et al. combined with a new local subgrid method for dust evolution based on the model by Birnstiel et al. We find striking differences between simulations with variable and fixed dust sizes. The timescales for dust depletion differ significantly and yield a completely different evolution of the dust surface density. In general, sharp features such as pileups of dust in the inner disk and near gap edges, when a massive planet is present, become much weaker. This has important implications for the interpretation of observed substructure in disks, suggesting that the presence of a massive planet does not necessarily cause sharp gaps and rings in the dust component. Also, particles with different dust sizes show a different distribution, pointing to the importance of multiwavelength synthetic observations in order to compare with observations by ALMA and other instruments. We also find that simulations adopting fixed intermediate particle sizes, in the range of 10−2 to 10−1 cm, best approximate the surface density evolution seen in simulations with dust evolution.