Jan T. Kleyna¹ et al. (>10)
Astrophysical Journal Letters 874, L20 Link to Article [DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0f40]
¹Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

On 2019 January 5 a streamer associated with the 4–10 km main belt asteroid (6478) Gault was detected by the ATLAS sky survey, a rare discovery of activity around a main belt asteroid. Archival data from ATLAS and Pan-STARRS1 show the trail in early 2018 December, but not between 2010 and 2018 January. The feature has significantly changed over one month, perfectly matching predictions of pure dust dynamical evolution and changes in the observing geometry for a short release of dust around 2018 October 28. Follow-up observations with the Hubble Space Telescope(HST) show a second narrow trail corresponding to a brief release of dust on 2018 December 30. Both releases occurred with negligible velocity. We find the dust grains to be fairly large, with power-law size distributions in the 10⁻⁵−10⁻³ m range and power-law indices of ~−1.5. Three runs of ground-based data find a signature of ~2 hr rotation, close to the rotational limit, suggesting that the activity is the result of landslides or reconfigurations after Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) spin-up.

^1,2Ninja Braukmüller,^1,2Frank Wombacher,^1,2Claudia Funk,^1,2Carsten Münker
Nature Geoscience (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0375-x]
¹Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie, Universität zu Köln, Köln, Germany
²Steinmann Institut für Geologie, Mineralogie und Paläontologie, Universität Bonn, Poppelsdorfer Schloss, Bonn, Germany

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David Jewitt^1,2, Yoonyoung Kim³, Jane Luu⁴, Jayadev Rajagopal⁵, Ralf Kotulla⁶, Susan Ridgway⁵, and Wilson Liu⁵
Astrophysical Journal Letters 876, L19 Link to Article [DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab1be8]
¹Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, UCLA, 595 Charles Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, USA
²Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, 430 Portola Plaza, Box 951547, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, USA
³Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
⁴Department of Physics and Technology, Arctic University of Tromso, Tromso, Norway
⁵NOAO, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
⁶Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706, USA

We present imaging and spectroscopic observations of 6478 Gault, a ~6 km diameter inner main-belt asteroid currently exhibiting strong, comet-like characteristics. Three distinct tails indicate that ultra-slow dust (ejection speed 0.15 ± 0.05 m s⁻¹) was emitted from Gault in separate episodes beginning UT 2018 October 28 ± 5 (Tail A), UT 2018 December 31 ± 5 (Tail B), and UT 2019 February 10 ± 7 (Tail C), with durations of ΔT ~ 10–20 days. With a mean particle radius 200 μm, the estimated masses of the tails are M _A  ~ 4 × 10⁷ kg, M _B  ~ 6 × 10⁶ kg, and M _C  ~ 6 × 10⁵ kg, respectively, and the mass-loss rates from the nucleus are 20–40 kg s⁻¹ for Tail A, 4–6 kg s⁻¹ for Tail B, and ~0.4 kg s⁻¹for Tail C. In its optical colors Gault is more similar to C-type asteroids than to S-types, even though the latter are numerically dominant in the inner asteroid belt. A spectroscopic upper limit to the production of gas is set at 1 kg s⁻¹. Discrete emission in three protracted episodes effectively rules out an impact origin for the observed activity. Sublimation driven activity is unlikely given the inner-belt orbit and the absence of detectable gas. In any case, sublimation would not easily account for the observed multiple ejections. The closest similarity is between Gault and active asteroid 311P/(2013 P5), an object showing repeated but aperiodic ejections of dust over a 9 month period. While Gault is 10 times larger than 311P/(2013 P5), and the relevant timescale for spin-up by radiation torques is ~100 times longer, its properties are likewise most consistent with episodic emission from a body rotating near breakup.

¹Jan L.Hellmann,^1,2Thomas S.Kruijer,³James A.Van Orman,¹Knut Metzler,¹Thorsten Kleine
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2019.05.040]
¹Institut für Planetologie, University of Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Straße 10, 48149 Münster, Germany
²Nuclear & Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue (L-231), Livermore, CA 94550, USA
³Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
Copyright Elsevier

Fifteen H, L, and LL ordinary chondrites of petrologic types 4 to 6 have been analyzed for Hf-W isotope systematics to constrain the chronology, internal structure, and thermal history of their parent bodies. For most samples coarse-grained metals plot below the isochrons defined by silicate-dominated fractions which consist of variable mixtures of silicate minerals with tiny metal inclusions. This offset results from an earlier Hf-W closure in the large metal grains and provides a new means for simultaneously determining cooling rates and Hf-W closure ages for individual samples. For most type 5 and 6 samples, cooling rates and Hf-W ages are inversely correlated, indicating that these samples derive from concentrically zoned bodies in which more strongly metamorphosed samples derive from greater depth. These data, therefore, provide strong evidence for a common ‘onion shell’ structure for the H, L, and LL chondrite parent bodies. The cooling rates and Hf-W ages of some type 5 and 6 chondrites overlap, indicating that the Hf-W systematics provide a more robust measure of the thermal history and burial depth of a given sample than the simple petrographic distinction between types 5 and 6. Two type 6 samples deviate from the correlation between cooling rates and Hf-W ages and cooled much faster than expected for their Hf-W age. These samples likely were excavated by impacts that occurred during high-temperature metamorphism and prior to complete closure of the Hf-W system at ∼10 Ma after CAI formation. As these impacts would have disturbed the asteroid’s cooling history, these samples likely derive from different bodies than samples with undisturbed cooling histories, implying that ordinary chondrites derive from more than just three parent bodies. The Hf-W data reveal that metal-silicate fractionation among the H, L, and LL groups occurred between ∼2 and ∼2.7 Ma after CAI formation and, hence, was about coeval to chondrule formation. As both metal-silicate fractionation and chondrule formation occurred prior to chondrite parent body accretion, there should be no ordinary chondrite chondrules that are younger than ∼2.7 Ma. Finally, ordinary chondrite precursors had lower Hf/W ratios than carbonaceous chondrites, suggesting that inner and outer solar system materials, respectively, were chemically distinct even for refractory elements.

^1,2Nicole G.Lunning,¹Timothy J.Mccoy,^3,4Devin L.Schrader,⁵Kazu Nagashima,¹Catherine M.Corrigan,²JulianeGross,⁶AlfredKracher
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2019.05.032]
¹Department of Mineral Sciences, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20560, USA
²Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 610 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8066, USA
³Center for Meteorite Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ 85287
⁴School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ 85287
⁵Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, 1680 East-West Road, POST 602 Honolulu, HI 96822 USA
⁶15837 Garden View Dr., Apple Valley, MN 55124-7006 USA1
Copyright Elsevier

The petrogenesis of the ungrouped iron meteorite Lewis Cliffs (LEW) 86211 and its proposed pair LEW 86498 has remained elusive in the decades since their discovery in Antarctica. Wasson, 1990, Kracher et al., 1998 noted the enrichment in the siderophile refractory elements, fine-grained texture, and high abundances of sulfides in LEW 86211 as features that are both difficult to explain and that set it apart from other iron meteorites. In this work, we investigate the pairing and formation of these two ungrouped iron meteorites using a combination of petrography, electron microprobe analyses, and secondary ion probe analyses of oxygen-three isotope of olivine. Similarities in petrographic features and phase compositions further support the initial pairing of LEW 86211 and 86498. The bulk composition of LEW 86211 (Wasson, 1990) closely resembles those of separated chondritic metallic components (e.g., Kong and Ebihara, 1997), which indicates this pairing group formed directly from this portion of a chondrite. The metal-sulfide cellular textures and mineral compositional trends are consistent with LEW 86211 and 86498 forming by rapid cooling of the FeNiS immiscible liquid of a larger chondritic impact melt unit. Previous bulk oxygen-three isotope analyses (Clayton and Mayeda, 1996) combined with the in situ oxygen-three isotope analyses from this work are consistent with LEW 86211 having a carbonaceous chondrite provenance. LEW 86211 is most similar to CR chondrites in its oxygen-three isotope signatures, but may not be from an established carbonaceous chondrite group. The silicate inclusions in LEW 86211 and 86498 record evidence of pre-impact metamorphism and later reduction related to contact with the metal-sulfide impact melt liquid. The silicate inclusions appear to have been engulfed by metal-sulfide liquids rather than part of the impact melted unit. Additionally, the size of this sulfide-dominated pairing group compared to the volume of sulfides and metal in unmelted CR chondrite suggests that these meteorites originated from a much larger carbonaceous chondrite impact melt body than has been previously recognized (e.g., Lunning et al., 2016).

Susanne Pfalzner^1,2 and Michele T. Bannister³
Astrophysical Journal Letters 874, L34 Link to Article [DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0fa0]
¹Jülich Supercomputing Center, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany
²Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn, Germany
³Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK

The discovery of 1I/’Oumuamua confirmed that planetesimals must exist in great numbers in interstellar space. Originally generated during planet formation, they are scattered from their original systems and subsequently drift through interstellar space. As a consequence they should seed molecular clouds with at least hundred-meter-scale objects. We consider how the galactic background density of planetesimals, enriched from successive generations of star and system formation, can be incorporated into forming stellar systems. We find that at a minimum of the order of 10⁷ ‘Oumuamua-sized and larger objects, plausibly including hundred-kilometer-scale objects, should be present in protoplanetary disks. At such initial sizes, the growth process of these seed planetesimals in the initial gas- and dust-rich protoplanetary disks is likely to be substantially accelerated. This could resolve the tension between accretionary timescales and the observed youth of fully fledged planetary systems. Our results strongly advocate that the population of interstellar planetesimals should be taken into account in future studies of planet formation. As not only the Galaxy’s stellar metallicity increased over time but also the density of interstellar objects, we hypothesize that this enriched seeding accelerates and enhances planetary formation after the first couple of generations of planetary systems.

Prabal Saxena^1,2, Rosemary M. Killen¹, Vladimir Airapetian^1,3, Noah E. Petro¹, Natalie M. Curran^1,4, and Avi M. Mandell¹
Astrophysical Journal Letters 876, L16 Link to Article [DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab18fb]
¹NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
²CREST II/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
³American University, Washington, DC 20016, USA
⁴USRA, Columbia, MD, 21046, USA

While the Earth and Moon are generally similar in composition, a notable difference between the two is the apparent depletion in moderately volatile elements in lunar samples. This is often attributed to the formation process of the Moon, and it demonstrates the importance of these elements as evolutionary tracers. Here we show that paleo space weather may have driven the loss of a significant portion of moderate volatiles, such as sodium and potassium, from the surface of the Moon. The remaining sodium and potassium in the regolith is dependent on the primordial rotation state of the Sun. Notably, given the joint constraints shown in the observed degree of depletion of sodium and potassium in lunar samples and the evolution of activity of solar analogs over time, the Sun is highly likely to have been a slow rotator. Because the young Sun’s activity was important in affecting the evolution of planetary surfaces, atmospheres, and habitability in the early Solar System, this is an important constraint on the solar activity environment at that time. Finally, as solar activity was strongest in the first billion years of the Solar System, when the Moon was most heavily bombarded by impactors, evolution of the Sun’s activity may also be recorded in lunar crust and would be an important well-preserved and relatively accessible record of past Solar System processes.

¹Haijun Cao,¹Jian Chen,¹Zongcheng Ling
Icarus (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.05.039]
¹Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy & Solar-Terrestrial Environment, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China
Copyright Elsevier 

Orbital remote sensing has recently identified alunite as one of the types of Al-sulfate on Mars. As other types of hydrated Al-sulfates may also exist abundantly in the soil and rocks on Mars, it is important to perform systematic experimental investigations of the spectral characterization of hydrous Al-sulfates to identify and determine their potential distribution on Mars. We successfully used the humidity buffer technique to synthesize five alunogen series of Al-sulfates, Al₂(SO₄)₃·xH₂O (x = 0, 4, 8, 12, 14) and AlH(SO₄)₂·H₂O, with different degrees of hydration. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to identify them from the PDF 2004 database, except for the species with 12 structural water molecules; the quantity of structural water in the latter was confirmed by thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry measurements after heating to >500 °C. Raman, mid-infrared (MIR), and visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra were acquired to evaluate vibrational spectroscopic properties related to crystal structure. The prominent ν₁ modes of SO₄ tetrahedra of six Al-sulfates from Raman and MIR spectra have obvious shifts to higher wavenumbers (from 993.4 to 1133.6 cm⁻¹) with decrease in hydration state. With no absorption bands from 250 to 1000 nm, all absorption features of the VNIR spectra of alunogen series of Al-sulfates are derived from overtones and combinations of fundamental vibrational modes from OH/H₂O and SO₄ groups, generally showing a red shift toward longer wavelengths with increasing hydration state. The XRD, Raman, MIR, and VNIR spectroscopic data of these Al-sulfates can provide crucial data supporting their identification for future remote sensing and in situ detection on Mars.

¹Driss Takir,²Karen R.Stockstill-Cahill,²Charles A.Hibbitts,³Yusuke Nakauchi
Icarus (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.05.012]
¹Jacobs/ARES, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058-3696, USA
²Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20273, USA
³JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan
Copyright Elsevier

We measured 3-μm reflectance spectra of 21 meteorites that represent all carbonaceous chondrite types available in terrestrial meteorite collections. The measurements were conducted at the Laboratory for Spectroscopy under Planetary Environmental Conditions (LabSPEC) at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL) under vacuum and thermally-desiccated conditions (asteroid-like conditions). This is the most comprehensive 3-μm dataset of carbonaceous chondrites ever acquired in environments similar to the ones experienced by asteroids. The 3-μm reflectance spectra are extremely important for direct comparisons with and appropriate interpretations of reflectance data from ground-based telescopic and spacecraft observations of asteroids. We found good agreement between 3-μm spectral characteristics of carbonaceous chondrites and carbonaceous chondrite classifications. The 3-μm band is diverse, indicative of varying composition, thus suggesting that these carbonaceous chondrites experienced distinct parent body aqueous alteration and metamorphism environments. The spectra of CI chondrites, from which significant amount of water adsorbed under ambient conditions was removed, are consistent with Mg-serpentine and clay minerals. The high abundances of organics in CI chondrites is also associated with the mineralogy of these chondrites, oxyhydroxides- and complex clay minerals-rich. CM chondrites, which are cronstedtite-rich, have shallower 3-μm band than CI chondrites, suggesting they experienced less aqueous alteration. CR chondrites showed moderate aqueous alteration relative to CI and CM chondrites. CV chondrites, except for Efremovka, have a very shallow 3-μm band, consistent with their lower phyllosilicate proportions. CO chondrites, like most CVs, have a very shallow 3-μm band that suggest they experienced minor aqueous alteration. The 3-μm band in CH/CBb is deep and broad centered ~3.11 μm, possibly due to the high abundance of FeNi metal and presence of heavily hydrated clasts in these chondrites. The 3-μm spectra of Essebi (C2-ung) and EET 83226 are more consistent with CM chondrites’ spectra. The 3-μm spectra of Tagish lake (C2-ung), on the other hand, are consistent with CI chondrites. None of these spectral details could have been resolved without removing the adsorbed water before acquiring spectra.

¹Youyue Zhang,¹Takashi Yoshino,¹Akira Yoneda,²Masahiro Osako
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 519, 109-119 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2019.04.048]
¹Institute for Planetary Materials, Okayama University, Misasa, Tottori 682-0193, Japan
²National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0005, Japan
Copyright Elsevier

The influence of Fe concentration on heat transport properties of olivine was investigated to understand the cooling history of rocky planets such as Mercury, Mars and asteroids. Thermal conductivity (λ) and thermal diffusivity (κ) were measured simultaneously for olivine polycrystal with different Fe contents (Fo, Fo₉₀, Fo₇₀, Fo₅₀, Fo₃₁ and Fo₀) up to 10 GPa and 1100 K by a pulse heating method. With increasing Fe in olivine, thermal conductivity of olivine first decreases and then slightly increases. The minimum λ was found to be at composition near Fo₃₁; the absolute λ value of Fo₃₁ is about 65% lower than that of Fo. Small amounts of Fe in olivine can strongly reduce the thermal conductivity at low temperature; λ value of Fo₉₀ is about 50% of Fo at room temperature. Thermal conductivities of polycrystalline olivine have smaller absolute values and weaker pressure and temperature dependences, compared with those of natural single crystal olivine determined by previous studies. Heat capacity of Fo₇₀ and Fo₅₀ calculated from λ and κ is independent of pressure and is controlled by nearly constant thermal expansion coefficient with increasing temperature. Smaller λ of olivine aggregate with high Fe content would produce a warmer mantle and, in turn, possibly a thicker crust in the Fe-rich Mars, while heat in the Fe-poor Mercury can escape faster than the other terrestrial planets. Olivine-dominant asteroids with high Fe concentration could have longer cooling history and lower thermal inertia on the surface.