Scientists have developed a precise method to test for chromium isotopes in rocks and meteorites. The method will help to reveal more details about the evolution of the Solar System, they claim.

Supernovae explosions in the Solar System generate chromium-50, chromium-52 and chromium-53 isotopes. The amounts of these isotopes vary and are recorded in materials formed as a result of these explosions, such as meteorites, asteroids and planets.

Supernovae explosions generate chromium isotopes in varying amounts

Using thermal ionisation mass spectrometry, Anne Trinquier, at the Institute of Geophysics of Paris, France,  and colleagues purified and measured chromium isotopes in meteorites at concentrations as low as 10 parts per million, a level of accuracy that has never before been achieved. Their method is simple and quick, which minimises cost and contamination. Also, it uses only a small amount of meteorite, a bonus when the starting material is so hard to replace.

The results enable Trinquier to distinguish between planetary bodies that were formed from different mixes of components and hence different explosions, something of great interest to scientists studying cosmochemistry.

'Precise chromium isotope ratio measurements are of great importance in any research related to the formation and early evolution of our Solar System,' comments Thorsten Kleine, an expert in Solar System chronology from the Institute of Isotope Geochemistry and Mineral Resources, ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

Trinquier says the next step is to improve the reproducibility of the results, with the hope that the measurements 'might reveal additional differences between planetesimals [small solar system bodies] and planets and help constrain further our understanding of planetary formation processes and timing'.

Rebecca Brodie

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