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Carbon From Outer Space Older Than Our Sun
Roland Piquepaille writes "While looking at interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) found in the Earth's stratosphere, researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis have found carbon older than the Solar System. They identified the organic material by its carbon isotopic composition, different from the one of carbon found on Earth. "Our findings are proof that there is presolar organic material coming into the Solar System yet today," said Christine Floss, the leading scientist. "This material has been preserved for more than 4.5 billion years, which is the age of the Solar System. It's amazing that it has survived for so long." This overview contains more details and references. It also contains pictures including the one of a sample's isotopic structure at a sub-micrometer scale."
Our findings are proof that there is presolar organic material coming into the Solar System yet today
I would have been shocked if this hadn't been found eventually - but it's nice to have positive proof.
Seems to me that this evidence gives a small boost to the Panspermia theory.
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It may not be anything but a statistical anomoly. How we date and locate things has always fascinated me. I.e. this is older because it is underneath this other thing. This volcanic rock is this old because there is this much of a potasium isotope present. We have been acurately recording radiometrics for how long now? 20-30 years? (I know we have been recording them longer but not to the accuracy we can today) So think about the statistics: We look at the decay across 30 years and immediately say it must have a half life of 1.251 billion years? excuse me but thats a pretty small sample rate for my tastes. THis example uses K-AR but that just because I found google hits faster than for carbon isotopes .. sme basic priciple applies though not on as large a scale.
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looking at interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) found in the Earth's stratosphere
How do you do that? You catch them with a giant Swiffer mop?
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Not really, some of you may recall that the law of conservation matter sez that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. So it had to survive. If it hadn't then this would be amazing because it would cast strong evidence against the law of conservatin of matter. I'm mean, really now, what else would it do besides float around in space forever?
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Seeing that carbon generation is a long way down the chain from the present hydrogen -> helium main cycle our star is in, it is logical to conclude that all carbon here on earth must at one point have come from some extra-solar source.
So this is news because?
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There is a lot of hype here.
It would really be surprising if our sun was older than the carbon from outer space.
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It may not be anything but a statistical anomoly. How we date and locate things has always fascinated me. .... We look at the decay across 30 years and immediately say it must have a half life of 1.251 billion years? excuse me but thats a pretty small sample rate for my tastes.
I see your point and agree that using science to know the past is very tricky. In the case of measuring half-lives, the methods are statistically accurate because of the huge sample size in atoms. If you start with 6 x 10^23 atoms and time how long it takes a billion of them to decay, you get a very accurate estimate of the decay rate. That the experiment only watches the atoms for a billioth of a half-life is less important that the fact that it counts the activity of such a large sample size of atoms.
But the problem you are alluding to is deeper than that. Although we can be statistically confident that the half-life of K40 is 1.251 billion years currently, that measurement gives us no proof that it has always been 1.251 billion years. For that we need accurate measurements of half-life at two widely separated times (and as you say, we've only been doing that for a few decades).
IANAP, so perhaps some astrophysicist here can enlighten us on how we know that the laws of physics dont change. Based on the invariance of spectral lines, I suspect that we can be confident that the eletromagnetic force has been constant over time (even here I wonder if its possible to change the laws of physics to mimic a redshift). But how do we know that the weak force and strong force have remained constant over the life span of the universe? For example, is there a way to accurately measure the half-life of elements spawned by billion light-year distant supernovae?
Finally, it may be that changes in half-life over galatic timescales are irrelevant and long as all half-lives change by the same factor. A consistent shift in half-lives would mess up the numerical dates, but not disturb the order. Thus, we may know that the carbon is older than our solar system, but be off in our numerical estimate of the age of the solar system.
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All of the carbon (and iron and nitrogen and oxygen and silicon and etc other than H, He, and maybe some Li and Be) on earth is older than the solar system, save for some fraction fo the above formed by radioactive decay. The solar system has no viable method to create and deposit significant amounts of (say) carbon on the earth, therefore any carbon here was here before the solar system condensed. It would be more newsworthy if the carbon were significantly newer than the solar system.
I haven't RTFA'd yet, but even if the significance of this carbon is that it has some special chemical form, there's no reason to assume that this bonding took place before the earth formed, as the component atoms would decay at the same rate, resulting in the same isotope ratios whether they were bonded or not...
The universe is something of an open sewer, filled with the waste products of billions of billions of exploded stars. It's not surprising that we picked up some of that trash, or that some of that trash is older than the trash that made us. IMHO this is of significant interest only because it sticks yet another fork in the creationist b.s.
Most chemical elements are older than the solar system. The fusion reactions that happen in our Sun will never produce an element heavier than iron (heavier in terms of atomic mass). These heavier elements are produced only in supernova explosions.
So, next time you look at a gold ring, remember that his atoms were "baked" in a supernova, a couple of billion years ago...
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First of all, your accurate information has already been posted. The standard theory of planets forming from interstellar objects is oldhat.
Also, your snide comment about creationist b.s. is unbased. Taking pot shots at beliefs that are completely unrelated to the current subject is poor, especially when you lack sources and explanation.
And now for something completely different...
Here is a fun experiment even you slashdot simpletons can do. Uranium isotopes decay at different rates. Today U235/U238 = 1/127. Assuming all of the U on earth was formed at the same time, in the same supernova U235/U238 = 1. If you carry through the calculation for time elapsed you get 6 billion years. Pretty neat. That doesn't make the carbon results seem that extraordinary.
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How do we know that this carbon they found started out with the same isotope ratio that we have here on earth? That seems like an audacious assumption. Do we have any evidence, for or against this idea?
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Is not almost all carbon on Earth older than the Sun? I was under the impression that it was pretty much accepted that all elements heavier than hydrogen were made in stars. Since I doubt that much (relatively speaking) made on Sol gets out of the gravity well, that pretty much says our carbon (and all of our other elements, save the little we made outselves or that is the result of natural fision of other elements) comes from older stars.
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