Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth
Micrometeorites (MMs) provide constraints on the flux and sources of extraterrestrial dust falling on Earth as well as recording the processes occurring during atmospheric entry. Collections of micrometeorites have been recovered from a wide variety of environments including Antarctic moraine, rock...
Published in: | Planetary and Space Science |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Other Authors: | |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Elsevier
2020
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80840 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 |
id |
ftimperialcol:oai:spiral.imperial.ac.uk:10044/1/80840 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftimperialcol:oai:spiral.imperial.ac.uk:10044/1/80840 2023-05-15T13:53:11+02:00 Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth Genge, MJ Van Ginneken, M Suttle, MD Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) 2020-03-11 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80840 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 English eng Elsevier Planetary and Space Science 0032-0633 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80840 doi:10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 ST/N000803/1 © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC-BY-NC-ND 12 1 Science & Technology Physical Sciences Astronomy & Astrophysics Micrometeorites Meteors Interplanetary dust Asteroids Comets FINE-GRAINED MICROMETEORITES COSMIC SPHERULES ANTARCTIC MICROMETEORITES TRANSANTARCTIC MOUNTAINS ACCRETION RATE CHONDRITIC MICROMETEORITES ISOTOPIC COMPOSITIONS COMET 81P/WILD-2 SOLAR-SYSTEM OXYGEN 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences Journal Article 2020 ftimperialcol https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 2021-03-18T23:38:56Z Micrometeorites (MMs) provide constraints on the flux and sources of extraterrestrial dust falling on Earth as well as recording the processes occurring during atmospheric entry. Collections of micrometeorites have been recovered from a wide variety of environments including Antarctic moraine, rock traps, ice and snow and on roof tops in urban areas. Studies of the mineralogy and composition of MMs suggest that most particles (>98%) >50 μm in diameter have asteroidal sources, whilst ~50% of particles smaller than 50 μm are likely to be derived from comets. The relative abundance of S(IV)-type asteroid materials, similar to ordinary chondrites increases with size, although C-type asteroidal materials, similar to carbonaceous chondrites dominate over all. Although MMs provide excellent evidence on the nature and abundance of extraterrestrial dust at the Earth’s orbit they are not without bias and uncertainty. Mineralogical and compositional change during atmospheric entry makes the exact nature of their precursors uncertain complicating evaluation of source beyond basic classes of material. This is particularly true at larger sizes when complete melting to form cosmic spherules occurs, however, unmelted MMs >50 μm in size are also often thermally altered. Mixing with atmospheric oxygen and mass fractionation by evaporation furthermore complicates the use of oxygen isotope compositions in identifying parent bodies. All MM collections are suggested to exhibit biases owing to: (1) collection method, (2) terrestrial weathering, (3) terrestrial contamination, and (4) erosion and deposition by terrestrial surface processes. Even in the least biased collections, those collected by dedicated melting of Antarctic snow, erosive loss of material is suggested here to make fluxes uncertain by factors of up to ~2. The abundance of asteroid-derived MMs observed in collections contradicts models of the orbital evolution of interplanetary dust to Earth, which suggests >70% should be provided by comets. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Imperial College London: Spiral Antarctic Transantarctic Mountains Planetary and Space Science 187 104900 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Imperial College London: Spiral |
op_collection_id |
ftimperialcol |
language |
English |
topic |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Astronomy & Astrophysics Micrometeorites Meteors Interplanetary dust Asteroids Comets FINE-GRAINED MICROMETEORITES COSMIC SPHERULES ANTARCTIC MICROMETEORITES TRANSANTARCTIC MOUNTAINS ACCRETION RATE CHONDRITIC MICROMETEORITES ISOTOPIC COMPOSITIONS COMET 81P/WILD-2 SOLAR-SYSTEM OXYGEN 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Astronomy & Astrophysics Micrometeorites Meteors Interplanetary dust Asteroids Comets FINE-GRAINED MICROMETEORITES COSMIC SPHERULES ANTARCTIC MICROMETEORITES TRANSANTARCTIC MOUNTAINS ACCRETION RATE CHONDRITIC MICROMETEORITES ISOTOPIC COMPOSITIONS COMET 81P/WILD-2 SOLAR-SYSTEM OXYGEN 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences Genge, MJ Van Ginneken, M Suttle, MD Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
topic_facet |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Astronomy & Astrophysics Micrometeorites Meteors Interplanetary dust Asteroids Comets FINE-GRAINED MICROMETEORITES COSMIC SPHERULES ANTARCTIC MICROMETEORITES TRANSANTARCTIC MOUNTAINS ACCRETION RATE CHONDRITIC MICROMETEORITES ISOTOPIC COMPOSITIONS COMET 81P/WILD-2 SOLAR-SYSTEM OXYGEN 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences |
description |
Micrometeorites (MMs) provide constraints on the flux and sources of extraterrestrial dust falling on Earth as well as recording the processes occurring during atmospheric entry. Collections of micrometeorites have been recovered from a wide variety of environments including Antarctic moraine, rock traps, ice and snow and on roof tops in urban areas. Studies of the mineralogy and composition of MMs suggest that most particles (>98%) >50 μm in diameter have asteroidal sources, whilst ~50% of particles smaller than 50 μm are likely to be derived from comets. The relative abundance of S(IV)-type asteroid materials, similar to ordinary chondrites increases with size, although C-type asteroidal materials, similar to carbonaceous chondrites dominate over all. Although MMs provide excellent evidence on the nature and abundance of extraterrestrial dust at the Earth’s orbit they are not without bias and uncertainty. Mineralogical and compositional change during atmospheric entry makes the exact nature of their precursors uncertain complicating evaluation of source beyond basic classes of material. This is particularly true at larger sizes when complete melting to form cosmic spherules occurs, however, unmelted MMs >50 μm in size are also often thermally altered. Mixing with atmospheric oxygen and mass fractionation by evaporation furthermore complicates the use of oxygen isotope compositions in identifying parent bodies. All MM collections are suggested to exhibit biases owing to: (1) collection method, (2) terrestrial weathering, (3) terrestrial contamination, and (4) erosion and deposition by terrestrial surface processes. Even in the least biased collections, those collected by dedicated melting of Antarctic snow, erosive loss of material is suggested here to make fluxes uncertain by factors of up to ~2. The abundance of asteroid-derived MMs observed in collections contradicts models of the orbital evolution of interplanetary dust to Earth, which suggests >70% should be provided by comets. |
author2 |
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Genge, MJ Van Ginneken, M Suttle, MD |
author_facet |
Genge, MJ Van Ginneken, M Suttle, MD |
author_sort |
Genge, MJ |
title |
Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
title_short |
Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
title_full |
Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
title_fullStr |
Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
title_full_unstemmed |
Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth |
title_sort |
micrometeorites: insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at earth |
publisher |
Elsevier |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80840 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 |
geographic |
Antarctic Transantarctic Mountains |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Transantarctic Mountains |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic |
op_source |
12 1 |
op_relation |
Planetary and Space Science 0032-0633 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80840 doi:10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 ST/N000803/1 |
op_rights |
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900 |
container_title |
Planetary and Space Science |
container_volume |
187 |
container_start_page |
104900 |
_version_ |
1766258165301641216 |