Ultraviolet shines light on origins of the solar system

"It has been recently demonstrated that variations in isotopic compositions of many elements in our solar system were inherited from the protosolar molecular cloud," said lead author Alexander Krot, of the University of Hawaii. "Our study reveals that oxygen is not the exception."

Molecular cloud or solar nebula?

When scientists compare oxygen isotopes 16, 17 and 18, they observe significant differences between the Earth and the sun. This is believed to be due to processing by ultraviolet light of carbon monoxide, which is broken apart leading to a large change in oxygen isotope ratios in water. The planets are formed from dust that inherits the changed oxygen isotope ratios through interactions with water.

What scientists have not known is whether the ultraviolet processing occurred in the parent molecular cloud that collapsed to form the proto-solar system or later in the cloud of gas and dust from which the planets formed, called the solar nebula.

To determine this, the research team turned to the most ancient component of meteorites, called calcium-aluminum inclusions (CAIs). They used an ion microprobe, electron backscatter images and X-ray elemental analyses at the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics and Planetology to carefully analyze the CAIs. They then incorporated a second isotope system (aluminum and magnesium isotopes) to constrain the age of the CAIs, making the connection -- for the first time -- between oxygen isotope abundances and mass 26 aluminum isotopes.

From these aluminum and magnesium isotopes, they concluded that the CAIs were formed about 10,000 to 20,000 years after the collapse of the parent molecular cloud.

"This is extremely early in the history of the solar system," said Lyons, who is an associate research professor at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, "so early that there would not be enough time to alter oxygen isotopes in the solar nebula."

Although more measurements and modeling work are needed to fully assess the implications of these findings, they do have implications for the inventory of organic compounds available during solar system and later planet and asteroid formation.

"Any constraint on the amount of ultraviolet processing of material in the solar nebula or parent molecular cloud is essential for understanding the inventory of organic compounds that lead to life on Earth," Lyons said.