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Science 19 September 2008:
Vol. 321. no. 5896, pp. 1664 - 1667
DOI: 10.1126/science.1160995
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Reports

Chondrulelike Objects in Short-Period Comet 81P/Wild 2

Tomoki Nakamura,1* Takaaki Noguchi,2 Akira Tsuchiyama,3 Takayuki Ushikubo,4 Noriko T. Kita,4 John W. Valley,4 Michael E. Zolensky,5 Yuki Kakazu,1 Kanako Sakamoto,1 Etsuko Mashio,3 Kentaro Uesugi,6 Tsukasa Nakano7

The Stardust spacecraft returned cometary samples that contain crystalline material, but the origin of the material is not yet well understood. We found four crystalline particles from comet 81P/Wild 2 that were apparently formed by flash-melting at a high temperature and are texturally, mineralogically, and compositionally similar to chondrules. Chondrules are submillimeter particles that dominate chondrites and are believed to have formed in the inner solar nebula. The comet particles show oxygen isotope compositions similar to chondrules in carbonaceous chondrites that compose the middle-to-outer asteroid belt. The presence of the chondrulelike objects in the comet suggests that chondrules have been transported out to the cold outer solar nebula and spread widely over the early solar system.

1 Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Faculty of Science, Kyushu University, Hakozaki, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan.
2 College of Science, Ibaraki University, 2-1-1 Bunkyo, Mito 310-8512, Japan.
3 Department of Earth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka 560-0043, Japan.
4 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706–1692, USA.
5 Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
6 Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, SPring-8, Sayo, Hyogo 679-5198, Japan.
7 Geological Survey of Japan, Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba 305-8567, Japan.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tomoki{at}geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Igneous Ca-rich pyroxene in comet 81P/Wild 2.
H. Leroux, D. Jacob, J. Stodolna, K. Nakamura-Messenger, and M. E. Zolensky (2008)
American Mineralogist 93, 1933-1936
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