Cosmic material

Four decades ago, He of apparent extraterrestrial origin was identified in ocean sediments. Merrihue (1964) observed He/ He ratios in marine sediments roughly 2 orders of magnitude higher than those observed in atmospheric helium and attributed it to the presence of cosmic material. 

Neutral and Ionic Atomic and Molecular Hydrogen.—Hydrogen is the most abundantly distributed cosmic material, and the photochemistry and physics of these species are thus of astrophysical importance as well as of importance in the Earth s atmosphere. 

Extraterrestrial dust particles can be proven to be nonterrestrial by a variety of methods, depending on the particle si2e. Unmelted particles have high helium. He, contents resulting from solar wind implantation. In 10-)J.m particles the concentration approaches l/(cm g) at STP and the He He ratio is close to the solar value. Unmelted particles also often contain preserved tracks of solar cosmic rays that are seen in the electron microscope as randomly oriented linear dislocations in crystals. Eor larger particles other cosmic ray irradiation products such as Mn, Al, and Be can be detected. Most IDPs can be confidently distinguished from terrestrial materials by composition. Typical particles have elemental compositions that match solar abundances for most elements. TypicaUy these have chondritic compositions, and in descending order of abundance are composed of O, Mg, Si, Ee, C, S, Al, Ca, Ni, Na, Cr, Mn, and Ti. 

Background Radiation. If the radiation from a radioactive source is measured, the spectmm also includes contributions from the radiations from the surrounding environment. This includes radiations from the radioactivity in the materials in and around the detector, including the stmcture of the building or nearby earth. There is also cosmic radiation that comes from space and interacts with the earth and atmosphere to produce radiations that may enter the detector, and thus is observed. 

Tritium has also been observed in meteorites and material recovered from sateUites (see also Extraterrestrial materials). The tritium activity in meteorites can be reasonably well explained by the interaction of cosmic-ray particles and meteoritic material. The tritium contents of recovered sateUite materials have not in general agreed with predictions based on cosmic-ray exposure. Eor observations higher than those predicted (Discoverer XVII and sateUites), a theory of exposure to incident tritium flux in solar flares has been proposed. Eor observations lower than predicted (Sputnik 4), the suggested explanation is a diffusive loss of tritium during heating up on reentry. 

The substances we can use come primarily from the earth. In its movement around the sun, the earth sweeps through space and collects material from meteors and some cosmic dust, but the amount of gathered material is small compared with the amount present in the earth. We shall consider the material of the earth and see how it is put to use by mankind. 

The composition of the Earth was determined both by the chemical composition of the solar nebula, from which the sun and planets formed, and by the nature of the physical processes that concentrated materials to form planets. The bulk elemental and isotopic composition of the nebula is believed, or usually assumed to be identical to that of the sun. The few exceptions to this include elements and isotopes such as lithium and deuterium that are destroyed in the bulk of the sun s interior by nuclear reactions. The composition of the sun as determined by optical spectroscopy is similar to the majority of stars in our galaxy, and accordingly the relative abundances of the elements in the sun are referred to as "cosmic abundances." Although the cosmic abundance pattern is commonly seen in other stars there are dramatic exceptions, such as stars composed of iron or solid nuclear matter, as in the case with neutron stars. The... 

Most CO and CO2 in the atmosphere contain the mass 12 isotope of carbon. However, due to the reaction of cosmic ray neutrons with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, C is produced. Nuclear bomb explosions also produce C. The C is oxidized, first to CO and then to C02 by OH- radicals. As a result, all CO2 in the atmosphere contains some 0, currently a fraction of ca. 10 of all CO2. Since C is radioactive (j -emitter, 0.156 MeV, half-life of 5770 years), all atmospheric CO2 is slightly radioactive. Again, since atmospheric CO2 is the carbon source for photos5mthesis, aU biomass contains C and its level of radioactivity can be used to date the age of the biological material. 

Radiation chemical processes involving cosmic and UV irradiation The extremely low density of material in interstellar space (ISM gas and ISM nuclei), which could affect the cometary material in the course of millions of years... 

The physiologist de Duve concentrated his efforts on a material link between the prebiotic phase of the primeval Earth and the state of development at which RNA (or a similar type of molecule) determined the further progress of the evolution process. In particular, this connecting link needed to have been able to transfer chemical energy, since without such a procedure, the RNA synthesis appears impossible. The molecular species which Christian de Duve favours for this important function is that of the thioesters. The exact reasoning as to why this is the case is discussed in detail in his book Vital Dust Life As a Cosmic Imperative (de Duve, 1996). 

Laboratory data from two groups (see Sect. 3.2.4) indicate that chiral amino acid structures can be formed in simulations of the conditions present in interstellar space. The experimental results support the assumption that important asymmetrical reactions could have taken place on interstellar ice particles irradiated with circularly polarised UV light. The question as to whether such material was ever transported to the young Earth remains open. But the Rosetta mission may provide important answers on the problem of asymmetric syntheses of biomolecules under cosmic conditions (Meierhenrich and Thiemann, 2004). 

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