Pervasive aqueous alteration in the early Solar System revealed by potassium isotopic variations in Ryugu samples and carbonaceous chondrites
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
C-type asteroids are the presumed home to carbonaceous chondrites, some of which contain abundant life-forming volatiles and organics. For the first time, samples from a C-type asteroid (162173 Ryugu) were successfully returned to Earth by JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission. These pristine samples, uncontaminated by the terrestrial environment, allow a direct comparison with carbonaceous chondrites. This study reports the stable K isotopic compositions (expressed as δ41K) of Ryugu samples and seven carbonaceous chondrites to constrain the origin of K isotopic variations in the early Solar System. Three aliquots of Ryugu particles collected at two touchdown sites have identical δ41K values, averaged at −0.194 ± 0.038‰ (2SD). The K isotopic composition of Ryugu falls within the range of δ41K values measured on representative CI chondrites, and together, they define an average δ41K value of −0.185 ± 0.078‰ (2SE), which provides the current best estimate of the K isotopic composition of the bulk Solar System. Samples of CI chondrites with δ41K values that deviate from this range likely reflect terrestrial contaminations or compositional heterogeneities at sampled sizes. In addition to CI chondrites, substantial K isotopic variability is observed in other carbonaceous chondrites and within individual chondritic groups, with δ41K values inversely correlated with K abundances in many cases. These observations indicate widespread fluid activity occurred in chondrite parent bodies, which significantly altered the original K abundances and isotopic compositions of chondrules and matrices established at their accretion.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Artikelnummer | 115884 |
Tidsskrift | Icarus |
Vol/bind | 409 |
Antal sider | 9 |
ISSN | 0019-1035 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
We appreciate the constructive comments from two anonymous reviewers that significantly improved the manuscript and Editor Alessandro Morbidelli for efficiently handling the paper. We thank Julien Moureau and Tu-Han Luu for their assistance with mass spectrometer maintenance. This work was partially supported by the IPGP analytical platform PARI, Region Ile-de-France SESAME Grants No. 12015908 , and DIM ACAV+, the ERC grant agreement No. 101001282 (METAL) (F.M.), the UnivEarthS Labex program (grant numbers: ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02 ) (F.M.), JSPS Kaken-hi grants (S.T., H.Y., T.Y.), and the CNES.
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