Interstellar Helium Trapped with the COLLISA Experiment on theMiRSpace Station—Improved Isotope Analysis by In Vacuo Etching

Solar wind helium, neon, and argon isotopic and elemental composition: Data from the metallic glass flown on NASA’s Genesis mission

“…(7) of maximum relative velocities between interstellar gas and trapping device. The interstellar 4 He flux trapped in the BeO layer corrected for backscattering is more than three orders of magnitude lower than the flux of the doubly charged solar wind 4 He (Busemann et al, 2006). Hence, even assuming that the trapping probability for very lowenergy particles in the BMG would not be lower than that in the light-element target BeO, e.g., 24% for 4 He in BeO (Salerno et al, 2003), interstellar He cannot account for the isotopically light component.…”

“…This line has been widely used to analyze SW noble gases in lunar samples and gas-rich meteorites (e.g., Heber et al, 2003), primordial noble gases in meteorites (Busemann et al, 2000) and interstellar He trapped in a BeO layer on BeCu-foils in the COLLISA experiment (Busemann et al, 2006). Sample and acid containers were held at 23°C during etching steps, while the sample was exposed to nitric acid vapor for some prescribed time.…”

“…Interstellar neutral He at 1 AU has been measured by Salerno et al (2003) and Busemann et al (2006) with the COLLISA experiment on the MIR space station. The exposure was carried out during a period Table 3c for the first ten etching steps of sample 40598-04-E/-F/-G/-J plotted as stars.…”

Astrophysics in 2006

“…Two lines of evidence concur that it is made in intermediate mass stars and ejected thereby. Balser et al (2006) have found a second planetary nebulae with elevated 3 He/ 4 He = 2 × 10 −3 ; and Busemann et al (2006) report that the local interstellar abundance is larger than the BBN prediction. The presence of flourine in planetary nebulae (Zhang and Liu 2005) shows that it, too, gets out of AGB stars, where it is produced in some sense at the expense of Na and Al .…”

Linking Primordial to Solar and Galactic Composition

“…This demonstrates that the principal effect of stellar processing is the conversion of deuterium into 3 He with the sum, D+ 3 He remaining nearly (Gloeckler andGeiss 1996, 1998). The LIC is the only present-day Galactic sample for which both the 3 He and deuterium (Linsky and Wood 2000) abundances have been determined (2000); Linsky et al (2006); Gloeckler andGeiss (1996, 1998); Busemann et al (2006) for the LIC; Mahaffy et al (1998) and Gloeckler and Geiss (2000) for the PSC; O'Meira et al (2001) and Bania et al (2002) for the BB. Deuterium is exclusively produced in the Big Bang (see Fig.…”