Definition
Presolar grains are nanometer- to micrometer-sized dust grains that are found in small quantities in primitive meteorites , interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), and in cometary matter. They are older than our Solar System and formed in the winds of evolved stars and in the ejecta of stellar explosions, as evidenced by large isotopic abundance anomalies .
Introduction
Our Solar System formed from the collapse of an interstellar gas and dust cloud some 4.57 billion years ago. Originally it was thought that all the matter that went into the making of our Solar System was completely mixed and isotopically homogenized. First hints about the presence of isotopically anomalous minerals in meteorites were found in the 1960s (Reynolds and Turner 1964; Black and Pepin 1969). It took another 20 years before Ed Anders and co-workers were able to isolate the first presolar minerals, silicon carbide (SiC), nanodiamonds , and (graphitic) carbon (in the following referred...
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References
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Hoppe, P. (2017). Presolar Grains. In: White, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_309-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_309-1
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