Key facts
- Category
- Cosmic dust
- Object class
- Presolar silicon carbide grain
- Composition
- Silicon carbide
- Scale fact
- 8 µmdiameter
- Estimated age
- Older than the Solar System
Presolar SiC Grain
8 µmdiameter
Details
A presolar silicon carbide grain is literal stardust that formed before the Sun existed. Some grains like this wandered through the Galaxy for millions of years, survived the Solar System’s birth, and ended up locked inside meteorites on Earth.
Presolar silicon carbide condensed around stars that lived before the Sun. Some of those grains survived interstellar travel, the formation of the Solar System, and later processing inside an asteroid before being recovered from a meteorite on Earth.
Researchers recognize this material by isotope ratios that differ sharply from the Solar System average. Different SiC populations preserve signatures associated with stellar environments such as asymptotic giant branch stars and supernovae, allowing individual microscopic grains to be tested as samples of stellar nucleosynthesis.
Links
- Wikipedia
- Presolar SiC Grain on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Presolar SiC Grain on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Presolar SiC Grain falls between Dust Aggregate and Micrometeorite. The band uses nearby Cosmic dust records.
Shared physical scale
6.12µm
Sources
References for Presolar SiC Grain
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
Continue with nearby objects or open the full scale.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.