Great new insights from failed experiments,unanticipated results and embracing controversial observations

Experimental data and observations, whether telescopic or analytical, are never wrong, though data derived from such sources can be misinterpreted or applied inappropriately to derive conclusions that are incorrect. Given that nature always behaves according to the laws of physics and chemistry, rather than according to currently popular models and theories, experimental results should always be considered correct even when the results are far from those that one might initially expect. We discuss a number of cases where the results of experiments, even one carried out as a simple calibration measure, produced wildly different results that generally required many years of effort or contemplation to understand. On the positive side, exploration of the circumstances that produced the “errant” results often led to new and interesting insights concerning processes that might occur in natural environments and that were well worth the effort involved.Specifically, we show how an experiment that “failed” due to a broken conductor led to experiments that made the first refractory oxide solids containing mass independently fractionated oxygen isotopes and to 1998 predictions of the oxygen isotopic composition of the sun that were confirmed by the analysis of Genesis samples in 2011. We describe a calibration experiment that unexpectedly produced single magnetic domain iron particles. We discuss how tracking down a persistent source of “contamination” in experiments intended to produce amorphous iron and magnesium silicate smokes led to a series of studies on the synthesis of carbonaceous grain coatings that turn out to be very efficient Fischer–Tropsch catalysts and have great potential for trapping the planetary noble gases found in meteorites. We describe how models predicting the instability of silicate grains in circumstellar environments spurred new measurements of the vapor pressure of SiO partially based on previous experiments showing unexpected but systematic non-equilibrium behavior instead of the anticipated equilibrium products resembling meteoritic minerals. We trace the process that led from observations of the presence of crystalline minerals detected in the comae of some comets to the 1999 prediction of large-scale circulation of materials from the hot, innermost regions of the solar nebula out to the cold dark nebular environments where comets form. This large-scale circulation was ultimately confirmed by analyses of highly refractory Stardust samples collected from the Kuiper Belt Comet Wild 2. Finally we discuss a modern and still unresolved conflict between the assumptions built into three well known processes: the CO Self Shielding Model for mass independent isotopic fractionation of oxygen in solar system solids, rapid and thorough mixing within the solar nebula, and the efficient conversion of CO into organic coatings and volatiles on the surfaces of nebular grains via Fischer–Tropsch-type processes.