No Arabic abstract
We measured the He and Ne concentrations of 50 individual extraterrestrial chromite grains recovered from mid-Ordovician (lower Darriwilian) sediments from the Lynna River section near St. Petersburg, Russia. High concentrations of solar wind-like He and Ne found in most grains indicate that they were delivered to Earth as micrometeoritic dust, while their abundance, stratigraphic position and major element composition indicate an origin related to the L chondrite parent body (LCPB) break-up event, 470 Ma ago. Compared to sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial chromite (SEC) grains extracted from coeval sediments at other localities, the grains from Lynna River are both highly concentrated and well preserved. As in previous work, in most grains from Lynna River, high concentrations of solar wind-derived He and Ne impede a clear quantification of cosmic-ray produced He and Ne. However, we have found several SEC grains poor in solar wind Ne, showing a resolvable contribution of cosmogenic 21Ne. This makes it possible, for the first time, to determine robust cosmic-ray exposure (CRE) ages in these fossil micrometeorites, on the order of a few hundred-thousand years. These ages are similar to the CRE ages measured in chromite grains from cm-sized fossil meteorites recovered from coeval sediments in Sweden. As the CRE ages are shorter than the orbital decay time of grains of this size by Poynting-Robertson drag, this suggests that the grains were delivered to Earth through direct injection into an orbital resonance. We demonstrate how CRE ages of fossil micrometeorites can be used, in principle, to determine sedimentation rates, and to correlate the sediments at Lynna River with the fossil meteorite-bearing sediment layers in Sweden.
In this work we have estimated 10 collisional ages of 9 families for which for different reasons our previous attempts failed. In general, these are difficult cases that required dedicated effort, such as a new family classifications for asteroids in mean motion resonances, as well as a revision of the classification inside the $3/2$ resonance. Of the families locked in mean motion resonances, we succeeded in determining ages of the families of (1911) Schubart and of the super-Hilda family, assuming this is actually a severely eroded original family of (153) Hilda. In the Trojan region we found families with almost no Yarkovsky evolution, for which we could compute only physically implausible ages. Hence, we interpreted their modest dispersions of proper eccentricities and inclinations as implying that the Trojan asteroid families are fossil families, frozen at their proper elements determined by the original ejection velocity field. We have found a new family, among the Griquas locked in the 2/1 resonance with Jupiter: (11097) 1994 UD1. We have estimated the ages of 6 families affected by secular resonances: families of (5) Astraea, (25) Phocaea, (283) Emma, (363) Padua, (686) Gersuind, and (945) Barcelona. By using a numerical calibration method, we have shown that the secular resonances do not affect significanly the secular change of proper a. For the family of (145) Adeona we could estimate the age only after removal of a number of assumed interlopers. With the present paper we have concluded the series dedicated to the determination of asteroid ages with a uniform method. We computed the ages for a total of 57 families with $>100$ members. There remain families too small at present to provide reliable estimates, as well as some complex families (221, 135, 298) which may have more ages than we could currently estimate.
The observations of the surfaces of the mid sized Saturnian satellites made by Cassini Huygens mission have shown a variety of features that allows study of the processes that took place and are taking place on those worlds. Research of the Saturnian satellite surfaces has clear implications for Saturn history and surroundings. In a recent paper, the production of craters on the mid sized Saturnian satellites by Centaur objects was calculated considering the current Solar System. We have compared our results with crater counts from Cassini images and we have noted that the number of observed small craters is less than our calculated number. In this paper we estimate the age of the surface for each observed terrain on each mid sized satellite of Saturn. We have noticed that since there are less observed small craters than calculated (except on Iapetus), this results in younger ages. This could be the result of efficient endogenous or exogenous process(es) for erasing small craters and or crater saturation at those sizes. The size limit from which the observed number of smaller craters is less than the calculated is different for each satellite, possibly indicating processes that are unique to each, but other potential common explanations would be crater saturation and or deposition of E ring particles. These processes are also suggested by the findings that the smaller craters are being preferentially removed, and the erasure process is gradual. On Enceladus, only mid and high latitude plains have remnants of old terrains; the other regions could be young; the regions near the South Polar Terrain could be as young as 50 Myr old. On the contrary for Iapetus, all the surface is old and it notably registers a primordial source of craters. As the crater size is decreased, it would be perceived to approach saturation until D less than 2 km craters, where saturation is complete.
The fall of the Annama meteorite occurred early morning (local time) on April 19, 2014 on the Kola Peninsula (Russia). Based on mineralogy and physical properties, Annama is a typical H chondrite. It has a high Ar-Ar age of 4.4 Ga. Its cosmic ray exposure history is atypical as it is not part of the large group of H chondrites with a prominent 7 - 8 Ma peak in the exposure age histograms. Instead, its exposure age is within uncertainty of a smaller peak at 30 pm 4 Ma. The results from short-lived radionuclides are compatible with an atmosperic pre-entry radius of 30 - 40 cm. However, based on noble gas and cosmogenic radionuclide data, Annama must have been part of a larger body (radius >65 cm) for a large part of its cosmic ray exposure history. The 10Be concentration indicates a recent (3 - 5 Ma) breakup which may be responsible for the Annama parent body size reduction to 30 - 35 cm pre-entry radius.
Most cool core clusters of galaxies possess active galactic nuclei (AGN) in their centers. These AGN inflate buoyant bubbles containing non-thermal radio emitting particles. If such bubbles efficiently confine cosmic rays (CR) then this could explain ``radio ghosts seen far from cluster centers. We simulate the diffusion of cosmic rays from buoyant bubbles inflated by AGN. Our simulations include the effects of the anisotropic particle diffusion introduced by magnetic fields. Our models are consistent with the X-ray morphology of AGN bubbles, with disruption being suppressed by the magnetic draping effect. We conclude that for such magnetic field topologies, a substantial fraction of cosmic rays can be confined inside the bubbles on buoyant rise timescales even when the parallel diffusivity coefficient is very large. For isotropic diffusion at a comparable level, cosmic rays would leak out of the bubbles too rapidly to be consistent with radio observations. Thus, the long confinement times associated with the magnetic suppression of CR diffusion can explain the presence of radio ghosts. We show that the partial escape of cosmic rays is mostly confined to the wake of the rising bubbles, and speculate that this effect could: (1) account for the excitation of the H$alpha$ filaments trailing behind the bubbles in the Perseus cluster, (2) inject entropy into the metal enriched material being lifted by the bubbles and, thus, help to displace it permanently from the cluster center and (3) produce observable $gamma$-rays via the interaction of the diffusing cosmic rays with the thermal intracluster medium (ICM).
Tunka-Rex (Tunka Radio Extension) is an antenna array for cosmic-ray detection located in Siberia. Previous studies of cosmic rays with Tunka-Rex have shown high precision in determining the energy of the primary particle and the possibility to reconstruct the depth of the shower maximum. The next step is the reconstruction of the mass composition and the energy spectrum of cosmic rays. One of the main problems appearing within this task is to estimate the detection efficiency of the instrument, and the exposure of the observations. The detection efficiency depends on properties of the primary cosmic rays, such as energy and arrival direction, as well as on many parameters of the instrument: density of the array, efficiency of the receiving antennas, signal-detection threshold, data-acquisition acceptance, and trigger properties. More than that, the configuration of detector changes with time. During the measurements some parts of the detector can provide corrupted data or sometimes do not operate. All these features should be taken into account for an estimation of the detection efficiency. For each energy and arrival direction we estimate the detection probability and effective area of the instrument. To estimate the detection probability of a shower we use a simple Monte Carlo model, which predicts the size of the footprint of the radio emission as function of the primary energy and arrival direction (taking into account the geometry of Earths magnetic field). Combining these approaches we calculate the event statistics and exposure for each run. This is the first accurate study of the exposure for irregular large-scale radio arrays taking into account most important features of detection, which will be used for the measurement of primary cosmic-ray spectra with Tunka-Rex.