The formation of the Baptistina family by catastrophic disruption: Porous versus non‐porous parent body

Abstract— In this paper, we present numerical simulations aimed at reproducing the Baptistina family based on its properties estimated by observations. A previous study by Bottke et al. (2007) indicated that this family is probably at the origin of the K/T impactor, is linked to the CM meteorites and was produced by the disruption of a parent body 170 km in size due to the head‐on impact of a projectile 60 km in size at 3 km s^?1. This estimate was based on simulations of fragmentation of non‐porous materials, while the family was assumed to be of C taxonomic type, which is generally interpreted as being formed from a porous body. Using both a model of fragmentation of non‐porous materials, and a model that we developed recently for porous ones, we performed numerical simulations of disruptions aimed at reproducing this family and at analyzing the differences in the outcome between those two models. Our results show that a reasonable match to the estimated size distribution of the real family is produced from the disruption of a porous parent body by the head‐on impact of a projectile 54 km in size at 3 km s^?1. Thus, our simulations with a model consistent with the assumed dark type of the family requires a smaller projectile than previously estimated, but the difference remains small enough to not affect the proposed scenario of this family history. We then find that the break‐up of a porous body leads to different outcomes than the disruption of a non‐porous one. The real properties of the Baptistina family still contain large uncertainties, and it remains possible that its formation did not involve the proposed impact conditions. However, the simulations presented here already show some range of outcomes and once the real properties are better constrained, it will be easy to check whether one of them provides a good match.     

7. Ancient Fossil Record and Early Evolution (ca. 3.8 to 0.5 Ga)

Once life appeared, it evolved and diversified. From primitive living entities, an evolutionary path of unknown duration, likely paralleled by the extinction of unsuccessful attempts, led to a last common ancestor that was endowed with the basic properties of all cells. From it, cellular organisms derived in a relative order, chronology and manner that are not yet completely settled. Early life evolution was accompanied by metabolic diversification, i.e. by the development of carbon and energy metabolic pathways that differed from the first, not yet clearly identified, metabolic strategies used. When did the different evolutionary transitions take place? The answer is difficult, since hot controversies have been raised in recent years concerning the reliability of the oldest life traces, regardless of their morphological, isotopic or organic nature, and there are also many competing hypotheses for the evolution of the eukaryotic cell. As a result, there is a need to delimit hypotheses from solid facts and to apply a critical analysis of contrasting data. Hopefully, methodological improvement and the increase of data, including fossil signatures and genomic information, will help reconstructing a better picture of life evolution in early times as well as to, perhaps, date some of the major evolutionary transitions. There are already some certitudes. Modern eukaryotes evolved after bacteria, since their mitochondria derived from ancient bacterial endosymbionts. Once prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes had colonized terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years, the first pluricellular animals appeared and radiated, thus inaugurating the Cambrian. The following sections constitute a collection of independent articles providing a general overview of these aspects.     

Laboratory Experiments of Stellar Jets from the Perspective of an Observer

It has been two decades since astronomers first discovered that accretion disks around young stars drive highly collimated supersonic jets. Thanks to concerted efforts to understand emission line ratios from jets, we know that velocity variations dominate the heating within these flows, and motions in stellar jets, now observed in real time, are primarily radial. The fluid dynamics of the cooling zones can be complex, with interacting shocks, clumps, and instabilities that could benefit from insights into the physics that only experiments can provide. Recent laboratory experiments have reproduced jets with velocities and Mach numbers similar to those within stellar jets, and the field seems poised to make significant advances by connecting observations and theories with experiments. This article points out several aspects of stellar jets that might be clarified by such experiments.     

Interpreting photometry of regolith-like surfaces with different topographies: shadowing and multiple scattering

The effects of various types of topography on the shadow-hiding effect and multiple scattering in particulate surfaces are studied. Two bounding cases were examined: (1) the characteristic scale of the topography is much larger than the surface particle size, and (2) the characteristic scale of the topography is comparable to the surface particle size. A Monte Carlo ray-tracing method (i.e., geometric optics approximation) was used to simulate light scattering. The computer modeling shows that rocky topographies generated by randomly distributed stones over a flat surface reveal much steeper phase curves than surface with random topography generated from Gaussian statistics of heights and slopes. This is because rocks may have surface slopes greater than 90°. Consideration of rocky topography is important for interpreting rover observations. We show the roughness parameter in the Hapke model to be slightly underestimated for bright planetary surfaces, as the model neglects multiple scattering on large-scale topographies. The multiple scattering effect also explains the weak spectral dependences of the roughness parameter in Hapke's model found by some authors. Multiple scattering between different parts of a rough surface suppresses the effect of shadowing, thus the effects produced by increases in albedo on the photometric behavior of a surface can be compensated for with the proper decreases in surface roughness. This defines an effective (photometric) roughness for a surface. The interchangeability of albedo and roughness is shown to be possible with fairly high accuracy for large-scale random topography. For planetary surfaces that have a hierarchically arranged large-scale random topography, predictions made with the Hapke model can significantly differ from real values of roughness. Particulate media with surface borders complicated by Gaussian or clumpy random topographies with characteristic scale comparable to the particle size reveal different photometric behaviors in comparison with particulate surfaces that are flat or the scale of their topographies is much larger than the particle size.     

The mid-infrared spectrum of the zodiacal and exozodiacal light

The zodiacal light is the dominant source of the mid-infrared sky brightness seen from Earth, and exozodiacal light is the dominant emission from planetary and debris systems around other stars. We observed the zodiacal light spectrum with the mid-infrared camera ISOCAM over the wavelength range 5-16 μm and a wide range of orientations relative to the Sun (solar elongations 68°-113°) and the ecliptic (plane to pole). The temperature in the ecliptic ranged from 269 K at solar elongation 68° to 244 K at 113°, and the polar temperature, characteristic of dust 1 AU from the Sun, is 274 K. The observed temperature is exactly as expected for large (>10 μm radius), low-albedo (<0.08), rapidly-rotating, gray particles 1 AU from the Sun. Smaller particles (<10 μm radius) radiate inefficiently in the infrared and are warmer than observed. We present theoretical models for a wide range of particle size distributions and compositions; it is evident that the zodiacal light is produced by particles in the 10-100 μm radius range. In addition to the continuum, we detect a weak excess in the 9-11 μm range, with an amplitude of 6% of the continuum. The shape of the feature can be matched by a mixture of silicates: amorphous forsterite/olivine provides most of the continuum and some of the 9-11 μm silicate feature, dirty crystalline olivine provides the red wing of the silicate feature (and a bump at 11.35 μm), and a hydrous silicate (montmorillonite) provides the blue wing of the silicate feature. The presence of hydrous silicate suggests the parent bodies of those particles were formed in the inner solar nebula. Large particles dominate the size distribution, but at least some small particles (radii ∼1 μm) are required to produce the silicate emission feature. The strength of the feature may vary spatially, with the strongest features being at the lowest solar elongations as well as at high ecliptic latitudes; if confirmed, this would imply that the dust properties change such that dust further from the Sun has a weaker silicate feature. To compare the properties of zodiacal dust to dust around other main sequence stars, we reanalyzed the exozodiacal light spectrum for β Pic to derive the shape of its silicate feature. The zodiacal and exozodiacal spectra are very different. The exozodiacal spectra are dominated by cold dust, with emission peaking in the far-infrared, while the zodiacal spectrum peaks around 20 μm. We removed the debris disk continuum from the spectra by fitting a blackbody with a different temperature for each aperture (ranging from 3.7″ to 27″); the resulting silicate spectra for β Pic are identical for all apertures, indicating that the silicate feature arises close to the star. The shape of the silicate feature from β Pic is nearly identical to that derived from the ISO spectrum of 51 Oph; both exozodiacal features are very different from that of the zodiacal light. The exozodiacal features are roughly triangular, peaking at 10.3 μm, while the zodiacal feature is more boxy, indicating a different mineralogy.     

Why we study the geological record for evidence of the solar oscillation about the galactic midplane

The Solar System oscillates about the plane defined by the disk of matter in our Galaxy. This oscillatory motion gives rise to a substantial modulation in the tidally induced flux of Oort cloud comets. An observational determination of the quasi-periodicity of this motion carries with it significant information about the population, distributions, dynamics and origins of short-period and long-period comets. An additional incentive for emphasizing such a study is the information about dark disk matter that a period can yield. If dark disk matter is completely negligible, the amplitude of the solar motion will be sufficiently large that the peak-to-trough flux ratio will be ≈ 2.5 and the plane-crossing period will exceed 40 Myr. Dark disk matter comparable in mass to bright disk matter and distributed in any manner is inconsistent with K-dwarf distributions and can be rejected as a working hypothesis. But if a modest fraction of the disk matter is dark and distributed like the interstellar medium, as is consistent with limits deduced from K-giant and K-dwarf velocity distributions, the peak-to-trough flux ratio can increase to a factor of 4 even though the solar z amplitude is decreased. In that case the period can be as little as 30 Myr and the implied Oort population is smaller by a factor of 3. We should carefully reconsider the geological record as a potential discriminator of these options.     

Basalt–trachybasalt samples in Gale Crater,Mars

The ChemCam instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, Curiosity, observed numerous igneous float rocks and conglomerate clasts, reported previously. A new statistical analysis of single‐laser‐shot spectra of igneous targets observed by ChemCam shows a strong peak at ~55 wt% SiO₂ and 6 wt% total alkalis, with a minor secondary maximum at 47–51 wt% SiO₂ and lower alkali content. The centers of these distributions, together with the rock textures, indicate that many of the ChemCam igneous targets are trachybasalts, Mg# = 27 but with a secondary concentration of basaltic material, with a focus of compositions around Mg# = 54. We suggest that all of these igneous rocks resulted from low‐pressure, olivine‐dominated fractionation of Adirondack (MER) class‐type basalt compositions. This magmatism has subalkaline, tholeiitic affinities. The similarity of the basalt endmember to much of the Gale sediment compositions in the first 1000 sols of the MSL mission suggests that this type of Fe‐rich, relatively low‐Mg#, olivine tholeiite is the dominant constituent of the Gale catchment that is the source material for the fine‐grained sediments in Gale. The similarity to many Gusev igneous compositions suggests that it is a major constituent of ancient Martian magmas, and distinct from the shergottite parental melts thought to be associated with Tharsis and the Northern Lowlands. The Gale Crater catchment sampled a mixture of this tholeiitic basalt along with alkaline igneous material, together giving some analogies to terrestrial intraplate magmatic provinces.