[B-AO01_28PO1] Astrobiology: Origins, Evolution, Distribution of Life

[BAO01-P02] Cosmic dusts capture on the International Space Station: Progress of the ground-based experiment

Hikaru YABUTA¹, *Yuichiro OGATA¹, Kyoko OKUDAIRA², Kensei KOBAYASHI³, Hajime MITA⁴, Satoru NAKASHIMA¹, Taro MORIWAKI⁵, Yuka IKEMOTO⁵, Sunao HASEGAWA⁶, Makoto TABATA⁶, Shin-ichi YOKOBORI⁷, Eiichi IMAI⁸, Yuko KAWAGUCHI⁷, Tomohiro SUGINO⁷, Kenji HAMASE⁹, Kazuhiko FUKUSHIMA¹⁰, Dan AOKI¹⁰, Takaaki NOGUCHI¹¹, Akira TSUCHIYAMA¹², Tomoki NAKAMURA¹³, Motoo ITO¹⁴, Takashi MIKOUCHI¹⁵, Hajime YANO⁶, Akihiko YAMAGISHI⁷, TANPOPO, Wg ⁶ (1.Osaka University, Department of Earth and Space Science, 2.University of Aizu, 3.Yokohama National University, 4.Fukuoka Institute of Technology, 5.SPring-8, 6.JAXA, 7.Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science, 8.Nagaoka University of Technology, 9.Kyusyu University, 10.Nagoya University, 11.Ibaraki University, 12.Kyoto University, 13.Tohoku University, 14.JAMSTEC, 15.Tokyo University)

Keywords:International Space Station, Cosmic dusts, Organic matter, Astrobiology, Origin of life, Aerogel

Introduction: Organic matter in interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) records the primitive chemical history in the early Solar System as well as it is thought to have delivered the building blocks of life to the early Earth (Chyba and Sagan, 1992). The Japanese Astrobiology working group, Tanpopo, is planning to collect the IDPs using a low-density silica aerogel (0.01 g/cm³) (Tabata et al. 2011) on the International Space Station (Yamagishi et al. 2009). The mission has a great advantage that collection of the pristine IDPs without atmospheric entry heating and terrestrial contamination will be expected. One thing that has to be considered is a possible modification of the chemical composition of organic matter in IDPs upon their high velocity impact to the aerogel. This issue has been also concerned in the Stardust cometary dust sample return mission. Although the laboratory simulations have been conducted to study the alteration of minerals (Okudaira et al. 2004; Noguchi et al. 2007), the alteration of organics under a realistic condition has not been well understood. As a ground-based experiment, we have conducted a laboratory experiment of aerogel capture of Murchison meteorite powder at 4 km/s using a two-stage light gas gun, in order to evaluate the extent of modification of organic matter in the meteorite.Experimental: The Murchison meteorite powder (~ 500 ug) of a particle diameter of 30-100 um in a polycarbonate sabot was shot at ~ 4 km/s using a two-stage light gas gun at JAXA/ISAS. The penetrations of the meteorite powder formed ~70 tracks of ~10 mm length in aerogel. Six terminal particles were extracted from the aerogel tracks using a tungsten needle and were pressed between two Al foils. The particles on the Al foils were analyzed by micro-Fourier transmission infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy at the beamline 43IR, Spring-8 and Osaka Univ., and micro-Raman spectroscopy at Osaka Univ. For a comparison, pre-shot Murchison meteorite powder was analyzed by these micro-spectrometers.Results and discussion: The IR imaging detected the regions of absorptions of aliphatic carbons, CH3 at 2960cm^-1 and CH2 at 2920cm^-1 within the two Murchison terminal particles captured by aerogel. Thus, organic matter is survived through the high velocity impact at 4 km/s. The spectral intensities of aliphatic carbons in the terminal particles are slightly lower than those in the pre-shot Murchison meteorite. CH2/CH3 ratios obtained from the IR spectra of the terminal particles were 0.3 ? 3, while those of the pre-shot sample were 1.3 ? 2. The difference in the ratios may be reflected by modification of aliphatic chains of organic macromolecules in the meteorite, e.g., demethylation, methylation, or cracking, due to the high velocity impact heating. From the two terminal particles, D- and G- bands, which are derived from carbonaceous matter, were detected by micro-Raman analyses. Peak widths and positions of the two bands showed similar values to those for pre-shot Murchison meteorite. Thus, modification of aromatic structures after the aerogel capture is unlikely. Although relative amounts of organics were low in the four other terminal particles, this may be reflected by original heterogeneity of the meteorite.