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SUMMARY:Learning about the early Solar System from cometary dust - Dr Nata
 lie Starkey (Open University)
DTSTART:20150209T170000Z
DTEND:20150209T180000Z
UID:TALK54368@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jack Wright
DESCRIPTION:Samples of comets should retain the best preserved components 
 of Solar System starting materials. Analyses of interplanetary dust partic
 les (IDPs)\, that are collected in the Earth’s stratosphere and originat
 e primarily from comets\, reveal their primitive nature - as evidenced by 
 high presolar grain abundances and primitive carbonaceous material. These 
 primitive features mean that IDPs provide access to samples of the early S
 olar System from bodies that are hard to access\, because of their distanc
 e from Earth\, and which may have never been sampled by meteorites.  As su
 ch\, IDPs allow us to understand more about the composition of comets\, gi
 ving us an understanding of how they formed\, when and where.\n \nRecently
  the Rosetta space mission orbited and landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Geras
 imenko and\, although no cometary material will be returned to Earth\, we 
 are set to gain new data that will allow us to learn more about the compos
 ition of comets. The Rosetta data provides the ground truth for IDP analys
 es\, and will aid our understanding of early Solar System processes\, incl
 uding how water and organic material might have been delivered to Earth.\n
 \nDr Natalie Starkey is a postdoctoral researcher at The Open University P
 lanetary and Space Science Department. Natalie studied for an MSci. in Geo
 logical Sciences at Durham University and gained her PhD in Geochemistry f
 rom University of Edinburgh. She has worked on a range of terrestrial samp
 les including volcanic rocks from the Soufriere Hills volcano in Montserra
 t and samples of lava flows from the early Iceland plume in Baffin Island 
 and West Greenland. Her recent research focusses primarily on analytical g
 eochemistry of precious comet and asteroid samples. These samples are coll
 ected in the Earth’s stratosphere by high altitude NASA aircraft\, retur
 ned by space missions such as NASA Stardust and JAXA Hayabusa\, or collect
 ed as meteorites from the Earth’s surface. Chemical and isotopic analyse
 s of these small samples require the use of specialised laboratory instrum
 ents such as the NanoSIMS 50L\, a laboratory in which she is Deputy Head a
 t The Open University.\n \nIn 2013 Natalie became a British Science Associ
 ation Media Fellow with The Guardian and a BBC woman expert for science. I
 n addition to a fairly extensive outreach programme\, she regularly appear
 s on television and radio commenting on space science news stories and she
  writes for The Conversation website about space science.
LOCATION:Harker Room 1\, Department of Earth Sciences
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