Physico-Chemical Properties of Chondritic Meteorites
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF CHONDRITIC METEORITES CLUES ON THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THEIR PARENT BODIES Carles Eduard Moyano Cambero Advisor: Dr. Josep Maria Trigo i Rodríguez Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (IEEC/CSIC) Tutor: Prof. Dr. David Jou i Mirabent Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Departament de Física This doctoral thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics Cerdanyola del Vallès, novembre 2017 Pleasure to me is wonder-the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. Howard Phillips Lovecraft i ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my advisor, Josep M. Trigo Rodríguez, for the supervision of this thesis. Few people show more dedication and enthusiasm for this field as he does, and it’s catchy! Also, he provided me many amazing opportunities to travel, participate in conferences, work with different teams… basically, to learn and grow as a person and scientist. Thanks to you, I discovered in the study of meteorites a very wide and complex world that turned out to be amazing. Gràcies! I also want to thank the many coauthors of the papers and abstracts published during the gestation of this thesis. I would like to thank Antonella Barucci and Sonia Fornasier for welcoming me at the Observatoire de Paris, and for all they taught me. Also Albert Rimola, and his contribution to the interpretation of the IR spectra. I would like to thank F. Javier Martín Torres, for the few days we shared in Madrid, in which your enthusiasm gave me renewed strength. A special mention to M. Isabel Benito and Jacinto Alonso, whose knowledge about geology and mineralogy proved to be completely crucial to publish our paper on ALH 84001; it took a very long time, but thanks to you… ¡Lo conseguimos! I’m very thankful to Jordi Sort and Eva Pellicer for their dedication and help that resulted in which is probably the best paper I have published so far, moltes gràcies! I also want to thank Martin R. Lee, Iwan P. Williams, Jürgen Blum, Patrick Michel, Michael Küppers and Ivan Lloro for their invaluable contributions. Particularly important are the contributions of Jordi Llorca, Narcís Mestres and Jordi Fraxedas, who besides from contributing to the papers granted us access to some of the instrumental techniques described here. Oh, and Belén Ballesteros, Marcos Rosado and Alfredo Fernández, for the technical support with the SEM, EDS and EMP. I also need to mention the people from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in particular Larry Nittler, Jemma Davidson, and Conel Alexander, for the time we spent together in D.C., which was amazing. Also the Rosetta-VIRTIS team for providing the Lutetia spectrum in digital form, the NASA Meteorite Working Group, and the Johnson Space Center, for providing the samples of Antarctic meteorites, and Professor Addi Bischoff, who kindly provided the Chelyabinsk thin section used in this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank Marina Martínez, coauthor and coworker: hem estat companys de moltes penúries, però també hem rigut amb el surrealisme de tot plegat. I qui m’ho havia de dir, al final seràs tu qui m’ensenyarà el camí. Sort, i ja ens veurem! iii A mis padres. No estéis orgullosos de mí, pues todo lo que soy sale de vosotros y mis logros son vuestros logros. Nos habéis dado la vida, y todas las oportunidades que vosotros no tuvisteis. Habéis dado vuestra vida para que nosotros solo tuviéramos que escoger un camino y seguirlo, y eso ha hecho posible esta tesis. Por todo ello, y mucho más, os doy las gracias. A la yaya, por enseñarme a escuchar, a tener paciencia, y a respetar a todo el mundo. A mi hermano, porque todo lo que me ha fascinado en esta vida (¡O casi!), primero te fascinó a ti. Tú caminaste por las rutas peligrosas; yo solo tuve que fijarme en tus huellas. Y al resto de mi familia, en general, por ser tan diferentes y tener tantos puntos de vista, por todo lo que he aprendido de vosotros, por el caos que somos todos juntos (¡Aunque del caos sale el orden!)… y por muchas otras cosas ¡Gracias! No em puc deixar tots els meus companys i companyes de batalletes a l’ICE. Des del cyber fins al flamant new building, hem viscut tantes i tantes coses plegats... La temperatura Sahariana al cyber, els coffees, seguir treballant quan sonen les alarmes d’incendi, l’epicness als Pirineus, Port aventura, la casa de l’Esquirol (i les golfes misterioses!), l’oasi del SAF, Montserrat, bodes, dinars, riures, bogeries, bikinis, cartells, ping-pongs, tontades vàries, reptes absurds, acudits massa frikis per ser tolerats... i sobretot, el que més ens ha ajudat a tots a complir amb la nostra tesi: el Lamatube; long live the Lama! M’agradaria mencionar-vos un/a per un/a, perquè hi ha tant a dir de cadascun de vosaltres! Heu fet d’aquests casi 5 anys una època molt memorable, i només espero que els nostres camins es tornin a trobar. Gràcies, gracias, thank you! De la mateixa manera, hauria de mencionar moltes altres persones que d’una manera o altra han fet que això hagi estat possible: als distingits membres del bus sharing i els seus horaris de servidor públic, que tan bé m’han vingut, les seves converses sobre paternitat, el cafè matiner, i, sobretot, les litrones! A tots els meus companys i companyes del cau, per tot el que he crescut amb ells/es i per ensenyar-me una manera diferent de viure la vida. Als meus amics, per acostumar-se a no veure’m el pel i esforçar-se en mantenir el contacte, malgrat tot... i tanta altra gent que m’oblido. Y finalmente a Amaia, por las aventuras que hemos vivido, por la paciencia que has tenido, por quererme a pesar de mis silencios, por tu locura, que me recuerda que no estoy solo en este mundo, por cada día que hemos pasado juntos (los buenos y los malos), por lo mucho que me has enseñado sobre mí mismo, por ser mi cielo (¡Lleno de meteoritos!) y mi compañera de viaje… ¡Muchas, muchas gracias! iv ABSTRACT In the first million years of the solar nebula, specific conditions triggered, from aggregation and melting of dust and presolar grains, the formation of the first solid materials of the Solar System. Among them, a variety of igneous glassy spherules known as chondrules can be found. These materials progressively aggregated together with dust and interplanetary particles to form larger bodies, such as asteroids, planetesimals, and finally planets. From those, some experienced chemical segregation due to heating and melting of their materials. The bodies that did not melt, called undifferentiated, still conserve some of these very primordial materials of the Solar System. The meteorites coming from these objects, known as chondrites from the chondrules that they contain, are therefore samples of materials formed in the protoplanetary disk around the Sun about 4,600 million years ago. This thesis studies chondrites with a multidisciplinary approach, starting with the exploration of several instrumental techniques applied to a Martian meteorite. Those techniques allow the study of several physico-chemical properties of chondrites, and therefore provide clues about the complex accretionary histories of their parent bodies. The specific mineralogy and features related to thermal metamorphism, aqueous alteration, and the effects of shock of two chondrites are described here in the context of their possible parent asteroids. Besides, spectroscopic techniques are applied as suitable method to link the meteorite samples to specific asteroids currently populating the Solar System. Retrieving samples directly from asteroids is a very complex concept, and therefore terrestrial collections of meteorites become a very available source of samples. The information obtained from chondrites can be extrapolated to better understand the composition, structure, and physical properties of asteroids. Thus, the study of chondrites can facilitate the practical applications on asteroids, such as space mining or the concept explored in this thesis: the deflection through solid projectiles of asteroids that suppose a potential thread to life on Earth, one of the goals the ESA and NASA collaboration known as the AIDA mission. Most of these potentially dangerous objects are made of chondritic materials, and therefore the study of chondrites can provide valuable information about them, which is key in order to be prepared for the possible future catastrophic impact events. v RESUM Durant els primers milions d’anys del Sistema Solar, condicions específiques van propiciar, començant per l’agregació i fusió de pols estel·lar i grans presolars, la formació dels primers materials sòlids del Sistema Solar. Entre ells s’hi pot trobar una varietat d’esferes ígnies anomenades còndrols. Aquests materials es van anar agregant amb pols i partícules interplanetàries per formar cossos més grans, com els asteroides, planetesimals, i finalment els planetes. Alguns d’aquests cossos van experimentar segregació química com a resultat de l’escalfament i la fusió dels seus materials. Els que no es van fondre, anomenats “no diferenciats”, encara conserven alguns d’aquests materials primitius del Sistema Solar.