The records of solar wind and solar flares in aubrites
Abstract
A large number of individual enstatite crystals of the gas-rich aubrites Khor Temiki, Staroe Pesyanoe and Bustee was analyzed for implanted helium and for steep gradient ion tracks in order to investigate the relation between solar flare irradiation and solar wind implantation with extreme local resolution. Irradiated and non-irradiated crystals coexist within the gas-rich phases of the aubrites investigated. Statistically in a given meteorite the proportion of crystals with implanted solar wind is similar to the proportion of solar flare irradiated crystals. It varies from aubrite to aubrite in the sequence of their bulk contents of trapped rare gases. For nine enstatites, tracks and rare gases were subsequently measured within the same crystal. The results support the intimate association of solar flare tracks and implanted He. The 4He-surface concentrations of irradiated crystals vary between <5 × 10 -7 and 10 -4 cm 3 STP/cm 2. The absence of saturation effects together with the low degree of elemental gas fractionation indicates very short solar wind exposure times (< 100 yr) rather than strong diffusion losses. The evidence from tracks and rare gases can be understood in terms of an early simultaneous irradiation of aubritic crystals by solar wind and solar flare particles on top of a regolith-covered parent body.
- Publication:
-
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
- Pub Date:
- December 1974
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0012-821X(74)90101-0
- Bibcode:
- 1974E&PSL..24..229P
- Keywords:
-
- Achondrites;
- Gas Analysis;
- Meteoritic Composition;
- Particle Tracks;
- Solar Flares;
- Solar Wind;
- Asteroids;
- Enstatite;
- Geochemistry;
- Radioactive Age Determination;
- Rare Gases;
- Trapped Particles