TY - JOUR
T1 - A light carbon isotope composition for the Sun
AU - Lyons, James
AU - Gharib-Nezhad, Ehsan
AU - Ayres, Thomas R.
N1 - Funding Information:
J.R.L. acknowledges support from the NASA Origins of Solar Systems program, grant NNX14AD49G to ASU. T.R.A. acknowledges support from NSF AST-0908293. Publication of this article was funded in part by the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries Open Access Fund.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Measurements by the Genesis mission have shown that solar wind oxygen is depleted in the rare isotopes, 17O and 18O, by approximately 80 and 100‰, respectively, relative to Earth's oceans, with inferred photospheric values of about -60‰ for both isotopes. Direct astronomical measurements of CO absorption lines in the solar photosphere have previously yielded a wide range of O isotope ratios. Here, we reanalyze the line strengths for high-temperature rovibrational transitions in photospheric CO from ATMOS FTS data, and obtain an 18O depletion of δ 18O = -50 ± 11‰ (1σ). From the same analysis we find a carbon isotope ratio of δ 13C = -48 ± 7‰ (1σ) for the photosphere. This implies that the primary reservoirs of carbon on the terrestrial planets are enriched in 13C relative to the bulk material from which the solar system formed, possibly as a result of CO self-shielding or inheritance from the parent cloud.
AB - Measurements by the Genesis mission have shown that solar wind oxygen is depleted in the rare isotopes, 17O and 18O, by approximately 80 and 100‰, respectively, relative to Earth's oceans, with inferred photospheric values of about -60‰ for both isotopes. Direct astronomical measurements of CO absorption lines in the solar photosphere have previously yielded a wide range of O isotope ratios. Here, we reanalyze the line strengths for high-temperature rovibrational transitions in photospheric CO from ATMOS FTS data, and obtain an 18O depletion of δ 18O = -50 ± 11‰ (1σ). From the same analysis we find a carbon isotope ratio of δ 13C = -48 ± 7‰ (1σ) for the photosphere. This implies that the primary reservoirs of carbon on the terrestrial planets are enriched in 13C relative to the bulk material from which the solar system formed, possibly as a result of CO self-shielding or inheritance from the parent cloud.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-03093-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-03093-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 29500355
AN - SCOPUS:85042910833
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 9
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 908
ER -