THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO ESTABLISH THE GENEALOGY OF IMPORTANT GROUPS OF PLANETARY MATERIALS AND TO DETERMINE THE PROVENANCE OF THEIR PARENT BODIES IN THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM USING NUCLEOSYNTHETIC ISOTOPIC ANOMALIES IN METEORITES. THE PROPOSED WORK WILL FOCUS ON ESTABLISHING THE GENEALOGY OF IAB-IIICD (NOW KNOWN AS IAB-COMPLEX) IIIAB AND IIE IRON METEORITES THE MAIN GROUP PALLASITES AND SELECT ANOMALOUS PALLASITES. THE ORIGIN OF THESE METEORITES IS STILL ENIGMATIC LIMITED LARGELY BY THEIR METALLIC COMPOSITION. THE COMPOSITIONS OF THEIR PARENT BODIES ARE MOSTLY UNKNOWN TO INFORM ANY MELTING EXPERIMENTS OR PETROGENETIC MODELS. I PROPOSE TO MEASURE NUCLEOSYNTHETIC ISOTOPIC ANOMALIES OF 54CR AND 50TI IN SELECT METEORITES FROM THESE GROUPS FOR WHICH THERE IS CURRENTLY ONLY SPARSE DATA AVAILABLE. THIS RESEARCH WILL REVEAL THE GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS OF IRON METEORITES AND PALLASITES WITH OTHER KNOWN PLANETARY MATERIALS AND POTENTIALLY DISCOVER PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN GROUPS OF PLANETARY MATERIALS AND GEOCHEMICAL RESERVOIRS WITHIN THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM. THE LACK OF SUCH INFORMATION HAS HINDERED ESTABLISHING RELIABLE PETROGENETIC MODELS FOR THESE IMPORTANT METEORITE GROUPS. THE PROPOSED PROJECT DIRECTLY ADDRESSES THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PLANETARY SCIENCE RESEARCH PROGRAM TO ADVANCE THE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THE CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM OPERATE INTERACT AND EVOLVE (NASA SMD 2014 SCIENCE PLAN). THE PROPOSED WORK IS FOCUSED ON UNDERSTANDING THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF PLANETESIMALS AND THEIR INTERRELATIONSHIPS IN THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM.
$90,000FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
University Of California, Davis