¹Zichen Wei, ¹Yan Zhuang, ^1,2Hao Zhang, ³Pengfei Zhang, ³Yang Li, ⁴Menghua Zhu, ¹Te Jiang, ³Ronghua Pang
Icarus (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2025.116665]
¹School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China
²CAS Center for Excellence in Planetology, Hefei, China
³Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, China
⁴State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Science, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
Copyright Elsevier

Space weathering processes, including micrometeoroid impact and solar wind irradiation typically redden, darken, and attenuate the fingerprint absorption features in the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) reflectance spectra of planetary surface materials. The so-called lunar style space weathering typically produces nanophase metallic iron (npFe0) and amorphous mineral layers. This paradigm has been known to be inadequate in describing the weathering processes on many other airless bodies and many open questions are waiting to be answered. For example, the greater flux of micrometeorite impacts or higher surface temperature on Mercury may produce larger npFe0 particles; the gardening effects on space weathering remain largely unknown; on asteroids such as Vesta, random regolith mixing and contamination by exogenic material from impacts are believed to be the dominant space weathering processes. To understand these and other questions in non-lunar style space weathering, we conducted pulsed laser irradiations on low-iron olivine grains in powders and pellets at various energy levels. By performing transmission electron microscope and reflectance spectroscopic measurements, we found that progressive irradiation caused continuous darkening. Meanwhile, the VNIR spectral slope changed from reddening to bluing after reaching a “saturation point”, and the absorption band depth transitioned from weakening to stabilization. At the same time, repeated irradiations led to limited growth of npFe0 particles in low-iron olivine. In all simulated irradiations, significant spectral alterations occurred in early stages, implying that fresh surfaces are more sensitive to space weathering. The rates of spectral modification of powder samples were found to be remarkably lower than those of the pellet samples. We also observed that exogenous metal contaminants could evaporate and condense into an opaque layer during simulated bombardments, obscuring the original spectral features of regolith.

¹Torii Douglas-Song, ¹Tsutomu Ota, ¹Masahiro Yamanaka, ¹Hiroshi Kitagawa, ¹Ryoji Tanaka, ¹Christian Potiszil, ¹Tak Kunihiro
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Open Access Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2025.05.038]
¹The Pheasant Memorial Laboratory Institute for Planetary Materials, Okayama University Yamada 827, Misasa, Tottori 682-0193, Japan
Copyright Elsevier

Here we report the in situ ion-microprobe analyses of the Li- and O-isotope compositions of enstatite, FeO-rich pyroxene, olivine, glass, and cristobalite grains from six chondrule-related objects from the Sahara 97103 EH3 chondrite. The O-isotope composition of the enstatite grains scattered around the intersection between the terrestrial fractionation and primitive chondrule minerals lines. Whereas, that of olivine varied along the primitive chondrule minerals line. Based on the mineralogy, we found cristobalite formed as a result of Si saturation, instead of the reduction of FeO-rich silicates, consistent with Si-enrichment of whole rock enstatite chondrites. Based on the mineralogy and O-isotope compositions, we infer that olivines in some chondrules are relict grains. In chondrules that contained olivine, no abundant niningerite [(Mg,Fe,Mn)S] was observed. Thus, enstatite formation can be explained by the interaction of an olivine precursor with additional SiO2 (Mg2SiO4 + SiO2 → Mg2Si2O6), instead of sulfidation (Mg2SiO4 + S → 1/2 Mg2Si2O6 + MgS + ½O2). Using the equation Mg2SiO4 + SiO2 → Mg2Si2O6 and the O-isotope compositions of enstatite and olivine, the O-isotope composition of the additional SiO2 was estimated. Based on the O-isotope composition, we infer that there could be a Si-rich gas with an elevated Δ17O value similar to, or greater than the second trend line (Δ17O = 0.9 ‰) suggested by Weisberg et al. (2021), during chondrule formation. The variation in the Li-isotope compositions of enstatite and olivine grains from EH3 chondrules is smaller than that for the same phases from CV3 chondrules. The variation in the Li-isotope compositions of the enstatite and olivine grains from EH3 chondrules is also smaller than that of their O-isotope compositions. During the recycling of enstatite-chondrite chondrules, both Li- and O-isotope compositions were homogenized. Although enstatite is the major carrier of Li in EH3 chondrules, the Li-isotope composition (δ7Li) of enstatite is lower than that of whole rock EH3 chondrites, suggesting the existence of a phase with higher δ7Li. Meanwhile, the Li-isotope composition and concentration (δ7Li, [Li]) of enstatite is higher than that of olivine. The Li-isotope composition of the Si-rich gas was estimated to be δ7Li = 1 ‰, using a similar mass-balance calculation as applied for the O-isotope composition. The Li-isotope composition of the Si-rich gas from the enstatite-chondrite-chondrule forming-region, is consistent with that of whole rock EH3 chondrites, and differs significantly from that of the Si-rich gas from the carbonaceous-chondrite-chondrule-forming region (δ7Li = −11 ‰) determined by a previous study. We speculate that the Si-rich gas in the carbonaceous-chondrite-chondrule-forming region maintained the Li-isotope heterogeneity inherited from light lithium synthesized by galactic cosmic-ray spallation in the interstellar medium.