Chemical and mineralogical size segregation in the impact disruption of inhomogeneous, anhydrous meteorites

We performed impact disruption experiments on pieces from eight different anhydrous chondritic meteorites—four weathered ordinary chondrite finds from North Africa (NWA791, NWA620, NWA869 and MOR001), three almost unweathered ordinary chondrite falls (Mbale, Gao, and Saratov), and an almost unweathered carbonaceous chondrite fall (Allende). In each case the impactor was a small (1/8 or 1/4 in) aluminum sphere fired at the meteorite target at , comparable to the mean collision speed in the main-belt. Some of the ∼5 to debris from each disruption was collected in aerogel capture cells, and the captured particles were analyzed by in situ synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence. For each meteorite, many of the smallest particles ( up to in size, depending on the meteorite) exhibit very high Ni/Fe ratios compared to the Ni/Fe ratios measured in the larger particles , a composition consistent with the smallest debris being dominated by matrix material while the larger debris is dominated by fragments from olivine chondrules. These results may explain why the interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) collected from the Earth's stratosphere are C-rich and volatile-rich compared to the presumed solar nebula composition. The IDPs may simply sample the matrix of an inhomogeneous parent body, structurally and mineralogically similar to the chondritic meteorites, which are inhomogeneous assemblages of compact, strong, C- and volatile-poor chondrules that are distributed in a more porous, C- and volatile-rich matrix. In addition, these results may explain why the micrometeorites, which are to millimeters in size, recovered from the polar ices are Ni- and S-poor compared to chondritic meteorites, since these polar micrometeorites may preferentially sample fragments from the Ni- and S-poor olivine chondrules. These results indicate that the average composition of the IDPs may be biased towards the composition of the matrix of the parent body while the average composition of the polar micrometeorites may be more heavily weighted towards the composition of the chondrules and clasts. Thus, neither the IDPs nor the polar micrometeorites may sample the bulk composition of their respective parent bodies.We determined the threshold collisional specific energy for these chondritic meteorites to be 1419 J/kg, about twice the value for terrestrial basalt. Comparison of the mass of the largest fragment produced in the disruption of an sample of the porous ordinary chondrite Saratov with the largest fragment produced in the disruption of an sample of the compact ordinary chondrite MOR001 when each was struck by an impactor having approximately the same kinetic energy confirms that it requires significantly more energy to disrupt a porous target than a non-porous target.These results may also have important implications for the design of spacecraft missions intended to sample the composition and mineralogy of the chondritic asteroids and other inhomogeneous bodies. A Stardust-like spacecraft intended to sample asteroids by collecting only the small debris from a man-made impact onto the asteroid may collect particles that over-sample the matrix of the target and do not provide a representative sample of the bulk composition. The impact collection technique to be employed by the Japanese HAYABUSA (formerly MUSES-C) spacecraft to sample the asteroid Itokawa may result in similar mineral segregation.