Potassium isotope anomalies in meteorites inherited from the protosolar molecular cloud.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33036981.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abd0511 and PMC identifier 7546711.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
Potassium (K) and other moderately volatile elements are depleted in many solar system bodies relative to CI chondrites, which closely match the composition of the Sun. These depletions and associated isotopic fractionations were initially believed to result from thermal processing in the protoplanetary disk, but so far, no correlation between the K depletion and its isotopic composition has been found. Our new high-precision K isotope data correlate with other neutron-rich nuclides (e.g., <sup>64</sup>Ni and <sup>54</sup>Cr) and suggest that the observed <sup>41</sup>K variations have a nucleosynthetic origin. We propose that K isotope anomalies are inherited from an isotopically heterogeneous protosolar molecular cloud, and were preserved in bulk primitive meteorites. Thus, the heterogeneous distribution of both refractory and moderately volatile elements in chondritic meteorites points to a limited radial mixing in the protoplanetary disk.