Isotopic Evolution of the Inner Solar System Inferred from Molybdenum Isotopes in Meteorites

Spitzer, Fridolin; Burkhardt, C.; Budde, G.; Kruijer, T. S.; Morbidelli, Alessandro; Kleine, T.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab9e6a

Cited by 59 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Indeed, the Zhamanshin crater, the largest confirmed impact crater on Earth formed in the last ~ Myr (an order of magnitude smaller in radius than Chicxulub) 57 , shows evidence that the impactor may have had a carbonaceous chondritc composition 58 , providing support to our model. Additionally, the likely existence of a well-separated reservoir of carbonaceous chondritic material beyond the orbit of Jupiter in the solar protoplanetary disk 59 lends further support to our model. Our model is in no conflict with the Moon's cratering rate, since it only applies in the size range around Chicxulub-scale impactors.…”

Section: Opensupporting

confidence: 75%

Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction

Siraj¹,

Loeb²

2021

Sci Rep

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The origin of the Chicxulub impactor, which is attributed as the cause of the K/T mass extinction event, is an unsolved puzzle. The background impact rates of main-belt asteroids and long-period comets have been previously dismissed as being too low to explain the Chicxulub impact event. Here, we show that a fraction of long-period comets are tidally disrupted after passing close to the Sun, each producing a collection of smaller fragments that cross the orbit of Earth. This population could increase the impact rate of long-period comets capable of producing Chicxulub impact events by an order of magnitude. This new rate would be consistent with the age of the Chicxulub impact crater, thereby providing a satisfactory explanation for the origin of the impactor. Our hypothesis explains the composition of the largest confirmed impact crater in Earth’s history as well as the largest one within the last million years. It predicts a larger proportion of impactors with carbonaceous chondritic compositions than would be expected from meteorite falls of main-belt asteroids.

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Section: Opensupporting

confidence: 75%

Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction

Siraj¹,

Loeb²

2021

Sci Rep

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“…As noted above, the data allow some r-process heterogeneity within the NC reservoir, meaning that there might have been some influx of CC material after accretion of the oldest NC bodies. This potential change is small, however, compared to the difference between the NC and CC reservoirs (Spitzer et al 2020). Both reservoirs were, therefore, probably already separated from each other when the NC iron meteorite parent bodies accreted.…”

Section: Growth History Of Jupitermentioning

confidence: 87%

“…However, in this model the close isotopic link between enstatite chondrites and Earth would be mere coincidence, which seems unlikely. More recently, Spitzer et al (2020) argued that the isotopic composition of the inner disk may have changed continuously through the addition of CC dust, and that this process affected all meteorite parent bodies, including those of enstatite and ordinary chondrites. Clearly, understanding the efficiency of the Jupiter barrier, and the effect of inward drifting CC dust on the isotopic composition of the inner disk, will be important tasks for future studies.…”

Section: The Role Of Jupitermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Non-carbonaceous–Carbonaceous Meteorite Dichotomy

et al. 2020

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The isotopic dichotomy between non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) meteorites indicates that meteorite parent bodies derive from two genetically distinct reservoirs, which presumably were located inside (NC) and outside (CC) the orbit of Jupiter and remained isolated from each other for the first few million years of the solar system. Here we review the discovery of the NC–CC dichotomy and its implications for understanding the early history of the solar system, including the formation of Jupiter, the dynamics of terrestrial planet formation, and the origin and nature of Earth’s building blocks. The isotopic difference between the NC and CC reservoirs is probably inherited from the solar system’s parental molecular cloud and has been maintained through the rapid formation of Jupiter that prevented significant exchange of material from inside (NC) and outside (CC) its orbit. The growth and/or migration of Jupiter resulted in inward scattering of CC bodies, which accounts for the co-occurrence of NC and CC bodies in the present-day asteroid belt and the delivery of presumably volatile-rich CC bodies to the growing terrestrial planets. Earth’s primitive mantle, at least for siderophile elements like Mo, has a mixed NC–CC composition, indicating that Earth accreted CC bodies during the final stages of its growth, perhaps through the Moon-forming giant impactor. The late-stage accretion of CC bodies to Earth is sufficient to account for the entire budget of Earth’s water and highly volatile species.

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“…Nanne et al (2019) and proposed similar models detailing the cause of distinct isotope compositions in CAIs, the NC, and CC groups. A variant of the infall model was published by Spitzer et al (2020). Authors propose that the most straight-forward explanation for a change in isotope composition (between NC and CC) is a change in the composition of infalling material from the parental molecular cloud into the disk, cou-pled with variable mixing and subsequent isolation (by proto-Jupiter) of reservoirs within the disk (e.g., Nanne et al 2019).…”

Section: Implications Of the Nc-cc Dichotomy On Disk Evolution Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The NC-CC Isotope Dichotomy: Implications for the Chemical and Isotopic Evolution of the Early Solar System

et al. 2020

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Understanding the formation of our planetary system requires identification of the materials from which it originated and the accretion processes that produced the planets. The compositional evolution of the solar system can be constrained by synthesizing astronomical datasets and numerical models with elemental and isotopic compositions from objects that directly sampled the disk: meteorites and their constituents (chondrules, refractory inclusions, and matrix). This contribution reviews constraints on early solar system evolution provided by the so-called non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous chondrite (CC) groups and their relationship to the volatile element characteristics of chondritic meteorites. In previous work, the NC or CC character of a parent body was used to infer its accretion location in the protoplanetary disk. The NC groups purportedly originated in the inner disk, and the CC groups were derived from the outer disk, where the NC and CC regions of the disk may have been separated early on by proto-Jupiter, a pressure maximum, or a dust trap in the disk. The tenet that all CC parent bodies accreted in the outer disk is, in part, based on evidence that a handful of CC meteorites are enriched in volatile species compared to NC meteorites. Here, it is reviewed if and how the volatile element and nucleosynthetic isotope compositions of meteorites can be linked to accretion locations within the disk. The nucleosynthetic isotope compositions of whole rock meteorite samples contrast the trends found for their major volatile element compositions (i.e., C, N, and O). Although there may be an increase in volatile abundances when comparing some stony NC and CC meteorites and their inferred accretion locations within the disk, this is not necessarily a general rule. The difficulties with inferring parent body accretion locations are discussed. It is found that it cannot always be assumed that parent bodies which formed in the CC reservoir are "volatile-rich" relative to those that formed in the NC reservoir which are "volatilepoor". Consequently, tracing the origin of terrestrial volatiles using the NC-CC isotope dichotomy remains challenging.

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Isotopic Evolution of the Inner Solar System Inferred from Molybdenum Isotopes in Meteorites

Cited by 59 publications

References 86 publications

Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction

Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction

The Non-carbonaceous–Carbonaceous Meteorite Dichotomy

The NC-CC Isotope Dichotomy: Implications for the Chemical and Isotopic Evolution of the Early Solar System

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