Australian researchers solve long-standing stardust puzzle

Australian researchers have solved a long-standing puzzle on the origin of stardust recovered from meteorites.

The international team of scientists, lead by Melbournes Monash University, identified the effect of a nuclear reaction within the dust grains for the first time.

Maria Lugaro, an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Center for Astrophysics and project leader of the study, said that the solar system was born out of a nebula where the rock-forming elements were locked inside dust grains.

"Some of this dust was made around stars, being effectively tiny condensed pieces of stars," Lugaro said.

"While most of the original dust was destroyed to make up new dust, rocks, and planets, including the Earth, a small fraction of stardust survived the destruction process."

Using special dust found on meteorites the researchers were able to trace the evolution of the nebula from which plants were born and to understand physical processes inside stars where the grains were formed.

Stars with a mass roughly six times larger than the sun have been observed by infrared telescoped to produce huge amounts of dust but researchers could not find any dust from those stars in the solar system.

However, the new research has solved the mystery of the missing dust by identifying the make-up of some meteoric stardust grains and the effect of the nuclear reactions that occur in these particular stars.

Amanda Karakas, a senior lecturer and research co-author at Monash University, said the research would have significant far-reaching effects for astronomy.

"This is an outstanding discovery which will help us to accurately account for dust production in galaxies, which has wide consequences for other areas of astrophysics, from star and planetary birth to studies of the most distant galaxies," Karakas said in a media release on Tuesday. Endit