Abstract
Although their parent stars no longer exist, the isotopic and chemical compositions and microstructure of individual stardust grains identified in meteorites provide unique constraints on dust formation and thermodynamic conditions in stellar outflows1,2,3,4,5. Novae are stellar explosions that take place in the hydrogen-rich envelope accreted onto the surface of a white dwarf in a close binary system6. The energy released by a suite of nuclear processes operating in the envelope powers a thermonuclear runaway, resulting in the ejection of processed material into the interstellar medium. Spectral fitting of features observed in the infrared spectra of dust-forming novae provided evidence of the co-condensation of both carbonaceous and silicate dust in stellar outflows within 50 to 100 days after explosion7,8,9. Although novae appear as prolific producers of both carbon- and oxygen-rich dust, very few presolar grains that can be attributed to novae have been found in meteorites thus far10,11,12,13,14,15,16. Here, we report the identification of an oxygen-rich inclusion, composed of both silicate and oxide nanoparticles, inside a graphite spherule that originated in the ejecta of a low-mass carbon- and oxygen-rich (CO) nova. This observation establishes laboratory evidence of the co-condensation of oxygen- and carbon-rich dust in nova outbursts and is consistent with large-scale transport and mixing of materials between chemically distinct clumps in the nova ejecta.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Zinner, E. in Meteorites and Cosmochemical Processes Vol. 1 (ed. Davis, A. M.) 181–213 (Elsevier, 2014).
Floss, C. & Haenecour, P. Presolar silicate grains: abundances, isotopic and elemental compositions, and the effects of secondary processing. Geochem. J. 50, 3–25 (2016).
Nguyen, A. N., Keller, L. P. & Messenger, S. Mineralogy of presolar silicate and oxide grains of diverse stellar origins. Astrophys. J. 818, 51 (2016).
Hoppe, P., Leitner, J. & Kodolányi, J. The stardust abundance in the local interstellar cloud at the birth of the Solar System. Nat. Astron. 1, 617–620 (2017).
Zega, T. J. et al. A transmission electron microscopy study of presolar spinel. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 124, 152–169 (2014).
José, J. Stellar Explosions: Hydroynamics and Nucleosynthesis (CRC Press, 2016).
Sakon, I. et al. Concurrent formation of carbon and silicate dust in Nova V1280 Sco. Astrophys. J. 817, 145 (2016).
Shore, S. N., Starrffield, S., Gonzalez-Riestrat, R., Hauschildt, P. H. & Sonneborn, G. Dust formation in Nova Cassiopeiae 1993 seen by ultraviolet absorption. Nature 369, 539–541 (1994).
Gehrz, R. D. et al. The temporal development of dust formation and destruction in Nova Sagittarii 2015#2 (V5668 Sgr): a panchromatic study. Astrophys. J. 858, 78 (2018).
Amari, S. et al. Presolar grains from novae. Astrophys. J. 551, 1065–1072 (2001).
Leitner, J., Kodolányi, J., Hoppe, P. & Floss, C. Laboratory analysis of presolar silicate stardust from a nova. Astrophys. J. Lett. 754, L41 (2012).
José, J., Hernanz, M., Amari, S., Lodders, K. & Zinner, E. The imprint of nova nucleosynthesis in presolar grains. Astrophys. J. 612, 414–428 (2004).
José, J. & Hernanz, M. The origin of presolar nova grains. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 42, 1135–1143 (2007).
Gyngard, F. et al. Automated NanoSIMS measurement of spinel stardust from the Murray meteorite. Astrophys. J. 717, 107–120 (2010).
Nguyen, A. N. & Messenger, S. Resolving the stellar sources of isotopically rare presolar silicate grains through Mg and Fe isotopes analyses. Astrophys. J. 784, 149 (2014).
Liu, N. et al. Stellar origins of extremely 13C- and 15N-enriched presolar SiC grains: novae or supernovae? Astrophys. J. 820, 140 (2016).
Haenecour, P. et al. Coordinated analysis of two graphite grains from the CO3.0 LAP 031117 meteorite: first identification of a CO nova graphite and a presolar iron sulfide subgrain. Astrophys. J. 825, 88 (2016).
Iliadis, C., Downen, L. N., José, J., Nittler, L. R. & Starrfield, S. On presolar stardust grains from CO classical novae. Astrophys. J. 855, 76 (2018).
Haenecour, P. et al. Presolar silicates in the matrix and fine-grained rims around chondrules in primitive CO3.0 chondrites: evidence for pre-accretionary aqueous alteration of the rims in the solar nebula. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 221, 379–405 (2018).
Croat, T. K., Bernatowicz, T. J. & Daulton, T. L. Presolar graphitic carbon spherules: rocks from stars. Elements 10, 441–446 (2014).
Smith, C. H., Aitken, D. K., Roche, P. F. & Wright, C. M. Mid-infrared spectroscopy of galactic novae. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 277, 259–269 (1995).
Gehrz, R. D. et al. The peculiar infrared temporal development of Nova Vulpeculae 1987 (QV Vulpeculae). Astrophys. J. 400, 671–680 (1992).
Takei, D. et al. X-ray fading and expansion in the ‘miniature supernova remnant’ of GK Persei. Astrophys. J. 801, 92 (2015).
Kawakita, H., Ootsubo, T., Arai, A., Shinnaka, Y. & Nagashima, M. Mid-infrared spectroscopic observations of the dust-forming classical nova V2676 Oph. Astron. J. 153, 74 (2017).
Figueira, J. et al. Three-dimensional simulations of the interaction between the nova ejecta, accretion disk, and companion star. Astron. Astrophys. 613, A8 (2018).
Casanova, J., José, J., García-Berro, E., Shore, S. N. & Calder, A. C. Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities as the source of inhomogeneous mixing in nova explosions. Nature 478, 490–492 (2011).
Li, K.-L. et al. A nova outburst powered by shocks. Nat. Astron. 1, 697–702 (2017).
Zega, T. J., Nittler, L. R., Busemann, H., Hoppe, P. & Stroud, R. M. Coordinated isotopic and mineralogic analyses of planetary materials enabled by in situ lift-out with a focused ion beam scanning electron microscope. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 42, 1373–1386 (2007).
Egerton, R. F. & Cheng, S. C. Measurement of local thickness by electron energy-loss spectroscopy. Ultramicroscopy 21, 231–244 (1987).
Acknowledgements
P.H. thanks the late Christine Floss for her mentorship and discussions about our discovery of a silicate-oxide inclusion inside LAP-149. This research was supported by the NASA NExSS ‘Earths in Other Solar Systems’ (EOS) programme (NNX15AD94G), NASA grants NNX15ALJ22G (T.J.Z.), NNX16AD31G (S.A.) and NNX14AG25G (C. Floss) from the Emerging Worlds Program, NSF grant AST-1517541 (K.L.), the Spanish MINECO grant AYA2017–86274–P, the EU FEDER funds and the AGAUR/Generalitat de Catalunya grant SGR-661/2017 (J.J.). This article also benefited from discussions within the ‘ChETEC’ COST Action (CA16117). STEM/TEM and FIB analyses were carried out at the University of Arizona Kuiper Materials Imaging and Characterization Facility (NSF grant 1531243 and NASA grants NNX15AJ22G and NNX12AL47G). The NanoSIMS measurements were also supported by the McDonnell Center for Space Sciences at Washington University in Saint Louis. We are also grateful to P. Wallace for his help with the preparation of the electron-transparent section, and to J. Lewis and T. Smolar for their support with the NanoSIMS 50 work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
P.H. prepared the FIB sample cross-section, carried out the TEM and NanoSIMS measurements and wrote the manuscript. J.Y.H., K.K., T.S., A.M. and T.J.Z. helped with the TEM analyses. T.J.Z., S.A., K.L. and J.J. contributed to the data interpretation. All authors contributed to the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Journal peer review information: Nature Astronomy thanks Reto Trappitsch and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–6
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Haenecour, P., Howe, J.Y., Zega, T.J. et al. Laboratory evidence for co-condensed oxygen- and carbon-rich meteoritic stardust from nova outbursts. Nat Astron 3, 626–630 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0757-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0757-4
This article is cited by
-
Dynamic charging effect on electromagnetic wave in low $\beta $ plasmas
Astrophysics and Space Science (2020)
-
Mixed messages from a nova outburst
Nature Astronomy (2019)