Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 23, Pages 7129-7134Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1502796112
Keywords
organics; meteorites; noble gases; accretion disk; ionization
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council [267255]
- Programme National de Planetologie
- European Research Council (ERC) [267255] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In the nascent solar system, primitive organic matter was a major contributor of volatile elements to planetary bodies, and could have played a key role in the development of the biosphere. However, the origin of primitive organics is poorly understood. Most scenarios advocate cold synthesis in the interstellar medium or in the outer solar system. Here, we report the synthesis of solid organics under ionizing conditions in a plasma setup from gas mixtures (H-2(O)-CO-N-2-noble gases) reminiscent of the protosolar nebula composition. Ionization of the gas phase was achieved at temperatures up to 1,000 K. Synthesized solid compounds share chemical and structural features with chondritic organics, and noble gases trapped during the experiments reproduce the elemental and isotopic fractionations observed in primitive organics. These results strongly suggest that both the formation of chondritic refractory organics and the trapping of noble gases took place simultaneously in the ionized areas of the protoplanetary disk, via photon- and/or electron-driven reactions and processing. Thus, synthesis of primitive organics might not have required a cold environment and could have occurred anywhere the disk is ionized, including in its warm regions. This scenario also supports N-2 photo-dissociation as the cause of the large nitrogen isotopic range in the solar system.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available