Carbon Raman Spectroscopy of 36 Interplanetary Dust Particles

Document Type

Conference Abstract

Publication Date

7-2009

Abstract

Carbon Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool to determine the degree of order of organic material (OM) in extra-terrestrial matter. As shown for meteoritic OM [e.g., 2], peak parameters of D and G bands are a measure of thermal alteration, causing graphitization (order), and amorphization, e.g. during protoplanetary irradiation, causing disorder. Th e most pristine interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) may come from comets. However, their exact provenance is unknown. IDP collection during Earth?s passage through comet Grigg-Skjellerup?s dust stream ("GSC" collectors) may increase the probability of collecting fresh IDPs from a known, cometary source. We used Raman spectroscopy to compare 21 GSC-IDPs with 15 IDPs collected at different periods, and found that the variation among GSC-IDPs is larger than among non-GSC IDPs, with the most primitive IDPs being mostly GSC-IDPs.

Presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, abstract number 5412.

Department

Physics and Astronomy

Publication Title

Meteoritics and Planetary Science

DOI

10.1111/j.1945-5100.2009.tb01099.x

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