彗星的反常尘埃彗尾

从地球上观测到的彗尾一般是在彗核的背太阳一侧延展,但也观测到几颗彗星在某些特殊情况却呈现出从彗核朝向太阳一侧延展的扇形或长钉形的反常彗尾或向日彗尾.反常彗尾是彗核抛出的大尘粒组成的尘埃彗尾,由于受太阳辐射压斥力较小而成为其轨道面附近的太空垃圾,这些垃圾会危害空间环境和航天安全,因此,观测和研究反常彗尾对于预防这些大尘粒撞击飞船有重要意义.本文首先介绍了反常彗尾的基本解释和事例,然后阐述了反常彗尾的尘埃彗尾动力学理论及其研究成果.最后简述了我国彗星猎人发现的新彗星C/2007 N3(Lulin),即鹿林彗星及其在2009年1-2月观测到的奇特反常尘埃彗尾情况,并给出了初步处理的一些形态图像和解释,初步测量和估算了反常彗尾长度.     

Pre-biotic organic matter from comets and asteroids

Several authors have suggested that comets or carbonaceous asteroids contributed large amounts of organic matter to the primitive Earth, and thus possibly played a vital role in the origin of life. But organic matter cannot survive the extremely high temperatures (>10(4) K) reached on impact, which atomize the projectile and break all chemical bonds. Only fragments small enough to be gently decelerated by the atmosphere--principally meteors of 10(-12)-10(-6) g--can deliver their organic matter intact. The amount of such 'soft-landed' organic carbon can be estimated from data for the infall rate of meteoritic matter. At present rates, only approximately 0.006 g cm-2 intact organic carbon would accumulate in 10(8) yr, but at the higher rates of approximately 4 x 10(9) yr ago, about 20 g cm-2 may have accumulated in the few hundred million years between the last cataclysmic impact and the beginning of life. It may have included some biologically important compounds that did not form by abiotic synthesis on Earth.     

Sublimation from icy jets as a probe of the interstellar volatile content of comets

Comets are some of the most primitive bodies left over from the Solar System's early history. They may preserve both interstellar material and material from the proto-solar nebula, and so studies of their volatile components can provide clues about the evolution of gases and ices, as a collapsing molecular cloud transforms into a mature planetary system. Previous observations of emission from rotational transitions in molecules have averaged over large areas of the inner coma, and therefore include both molecules that sublimed from the nucleus and those that result from subsequent chemical processes in the coma Here we present high-resolution observations of emission from the molecules HNC, DCN and HDO associated with comet Hale-Bopp. Our data reveal arc-like structures-icy jets-offset from (but close to) the nucleus. The measured abundance ratios on 1-3" scales are substantially different from those on larger scales, and cannot be accounted for by models of chemical processes in the coma; they are, however, similar to the values observed in the cores of dense interstellar clouds and young stellar objects. We therefore propose that sublimation from millimetre-sized icy grains ejected from the nucleus provides access to relatively unaltered volatiles. The D/H ratios inferred from our data suggest that, by mass, Hale-Bopp (and by inference the outer regions of the early solar nebula) consists of > or =15-40% of largely unprocessed interstellar material.     

U-Pb ages of zircon grains reveal a proximal dust source of the Xiashu loess,Lower Yangtze River region,China

Deciphering the eolian sources is critical to understand the paleo-significance of the Quaternary eolian deposits （the Xiashu loess） in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Both a local source from the fluvial sediments of the Yangtze River and a distal source from the northern deserts similar to that of the loess on the Chinese Loess Plateau （CLP） have been proposed. Recent researches show great advantages of detrital zircon ages as a source tracer for Asian dust based on the laser ablation U-Pb isotopic dating technique. This work presents the U-Pb ages of zircon grains extracted from the Xiashu loess. The results indicate that the Xiashu loess has a very different age distribution of zircon grains from that of the loess on the CLP as well as the materials in the arid lands of the Asian Interior. Instead, the zircon ages of the Xiashu loess are indistinguishable from the fluvial sediments of the Yangtze River, indicating the dominance of proximal dust source. Proximal source of the Xiashu loess implies that extensive eolian processes might have existed in the currently wet South China, possibly in response to the full glacial conditions after the middle Pleistocene transition of global climate.     

TIMS U-series ages of speleothems from the Tangshan caves, Nanjing

U-series ages of a set of speleothem samples from the two caves near Tangshan Town, Nanjing, determined by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS), range from older than 500 KaBP to around 20 kaBP. These dated speleothems with unequivocal stratigraphic layers in cave sediments provide basic data to establish a geochronologic sequence for the cave sediments. Together with the buried layers of two hominid craniums, it is argued that the two fossil craniums, probably transported into the cave, deposited in different geological periods. The ages of one flowstone sample and stalagmites mark an upper limit of 500 KaBP for geochronology of No. 1 fossil cranium, and suggest No. 2 fossil cranium deposited within the age range of 500–240 KaBP.     

High-velocity streams of dust originating from Saturn

High-velocity submicrometre-sized dust particles expelled from the jovian system have been identified by dust detectors on board several spacecraft. On the basis of periodicities in the dust impact rate, Jupiter's moon Io was found to be the dominant source of the streams. The grains become positively charged within the plasma environment of Jupiter's magnetosphere, and gain energy from its co-rotational electric field. Outside the magnetosphere, the dynamics of the grains are governed by the interaction with the interplanetary magnetic field that eventually forms the streams. A similar process was suggested for Saturn. Here we report the discovery by the Cassini spacecraft of bursts of high-velocity dust particles (> or = 100 km s(-1)) within approximately 70 million kilometres of Saturn. Most of the particles detected at large distances appear to originate from the outskirts of Saturn's outermost main ring. All bursts of dust impacts detected within 150 Saturn radii are characterized by impact directions markedly different from those measured between the bursts, and they clearly coincide with the spacecraft's traversals through streams of compressed solar wind.     

Meteoritic dust from the atmospheric disintegration of a large meteoroid

Much of the mass of most meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere is consumed in the process of ablation. Larger meteoroids (> 10 cm), which in some cases reach the ground as meteorites, typically have survival fractions near 1-25 per cent of their initial mass. The fate of the remaining ablated material is unclear, but theory suggests that much of it should recondense through coagulation as nanometre-sized particles. No direct measurements of such meteoric 'smoke' have hitherto been made. Here we report the disintegration of one of the largest meteoroids to have entered the Earth's atmosphere during the past decade, and show that the dominant contribution to the mass of the residual atmospheric aerosol was in the form of micrometre-sized particles. This result is contrary to the usual view that most of the material in large meteoroids is efficiently converted to particles of much smaller size through ablation. Assuming that our observations are of a typical event, we suggest that large meteoroids provide the dominant source of micrometre-sized meteoritic dust at the Earth's surface over long timescales.     

Rapid collisional evolution of comets during the formation of the Oort cloud

The Oort cloud of comets was formed by the ejection of icy planetesimals from the region of giant planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune--during their formation. Dynamical simulations have previously shown that comets reach the Oort cloud only after being perturbed into eccentric orbits that result in close encounters with the giant planets, which then eject them to distant orbits about 10(4) to 10(5) AU from the Sun (1 AU is the average Earth-Sun distance). All of the Oort cloud models constructed until now simulate its formation using only gravitational effects; these include the influence of the Sun, the planets and external perturbers such as passing stars and Galactic tides. Here we show that physical collisions between comets and small debris play a fundamental and hitherto unexplored role throughout most of the ejection process. For standard models of the protosolar nebula (starting with a minimum-mass nebula) we find that collisional evolution of comets is so severe that their erosional lifetimes are much shorter than the timescale for dynamical ejection. It therefore appears that collisions will prevent most comets escaping from most locations in the region of the giant planets until the disk mass there declines sufficiently that the dynamical ejection timescale is shorter than the collisional lifetime. One consequence is that the total mass of comets in the Oort cloud may be less than currently believed.     

由P-S曲线确定摩擦桩单桩的有效桩长

在分析摩擦桩的刚度与桩长之间关系的基础上，根据正常工作荷载下，桩与土处于弹性状态的假定，提出了一种计算有效桩长的方法，并结合现场实测的数据证明了此方法的可靠性，此方法对于研究摩擦桩的刚度问题有一定的实用价值。     

矿尘痕量元素在飘积土和地面土中的分布和识别

研究了黄铁矿采矿场12种矿样与采矿场附近降尘累积土(飘积土)和地面土中As、Cd、Co、Cr、Cu、Mo、Ni、Pb、Tl、Ba和Se的分布.将土壤学中元素比的概念引入痕量元素溯源,提出元素相似比和相似度2个概念,结合元素相关性识别飘积土和地面土中的来自矿尘的痕量元素.结果表明,在2.0～16.0 cm的飘积表土和地面表土中,大部分痕、微量元素的最低值均低于其背景值(<1 km地面土中Pb和>1 km地面土中Cd和Co除外),而平均值和最高值均高于背景值(飘积土中的Cu、Se的平均值、<1 km地面土中Cr、>1 km地面土中Cu和上述全部样品中的Ba除外).在18.0～36.0 cm的飘积心土和地面心土中,大部分痕、微量元素的最低值和平均值均高于背景值(飘积心土的Co、Cu、Se和>1 km地面心土Pb、Cu、Ba除外).痕、微量元素呈亚层积聚特征.同时,相关系数r>0.2的矿样元素,与飘积土和地面土至少有1个相似度>0.5的元素相似比,相关系数r≥0.54的矿样元素,与飘积土和地面土有2个以上相似度>0.5的元素相似比.据此可识别飘积土和地面土中的来自矿尘的痕量元素.     

The evolution of comets in the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt

Comets are remnants from the time when the outer planets formed, approximately 4-4.5 billion years ago. They have been in storage since then in the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt-distant regions that are so cold and sparsely populated that it was long thought that comets approaching the Sun were pristine samples from the time of Solar System formation. It is now recognized, however, that a variety of subtle but important evolutionary mechanisms operate on comets during their long storage, so they can no longer be regarded as wholly pristine.     

Interplanetary dust from the explosive dispersal of hydrated asteroids by impacts

The Earth accretes about 30,000 tons of dust particles per year, with sizes in the range of 20-400 microm (refs 1, 2). Those particles collected at the Earth's surface--termed micrometeorites--are similar in chemistry and mineralogy to hydrated, porous meteorites, but such meteorites comprise only 2.8% of recovered falls. This large difference in relative abundances has been attributed to 'filtering' by the Earth's atmosphere, that is, the porous meteorites are considered to be so friable that they do not survive the impact with the atmosphere. Here we report shock-recovery experiments on two porous meteorites, one of which is hydrated and the other is anhydrous. The application of shock to the hydrated meteorite reduces it to minute particles and explosive expansion results upon release of the pressure, through a much broader range of pressures than for the anhydrous meteorite. Our results indicate that hydrated asteroids will produce dust particles during collisions at a much higher rate than anhydrous asteroids, which explains the different relative abundances of the hydrated material in micrometeorites and meteorites: the abundances are established before contact with the Earth's atmosphere.     

从藏书排架谈种次号的确定方法

针对种次号排架存在的弊端，提出了若干改进方法，在一定程度上解决了内容特征基本相同的图书或适宜集中排架的图书不能集中的问题，便于读者在查找图书过程中的挑选与比较。     

Formation of highly crystalline maghemite nanoparticles from ferrihydrite in the liquid phase

Fe₅O₇(OH)·4H₂O ferrihydrite is a low-crystallinity antiferromagnetic material. γ-Fe₂O₃ (maghemite) magnetic nanoparticles were prepared from a ferrihydrite precursor, by chemically induced transformation in FeCl₂/NaOH solution. The magnetization, morphology, crystal structure and chemical composition of the products were determined by vibrating sample magnetometry, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Ferrihydrite underwent aggregation growth and transformed into α-FeO(OH) (goethite) particles, which subsequently transformed into γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles, that became coated with NaCl. The γ-Fe₂O₃ particles had a flake-like morphology, when prepared from 0.01 mol/L FeCl₂ and a FeCl₂:NaOH molar ratio of 0.4. The γ-Fe₂O₃ particles were more spherical, when prepared from a FeCl₂:NaOH molar ratio of 0.6. The Fe content of the flake-like particles was lower than that of the spherical particles. Their magnetizations were similar, and the coercivity of the flake-like particles was larger. The differences in morphology and magnetization were attributed to the surface effect, and the difference in coercivity to the shape effect.     

Formation of highly crystalline maghemite nanoparticles from ferrihydrite in the liquid phase

Fe5O7（OH）·4H2O ferrihydrite is a low-crystal- linity antiferromagnetic material, γ-Fe2O3 （maghemite） magnetic nanoparticles were prepared from a ferrihydrite precursor, by chemically induced transformation in FeCl2/ NaOH solution. The magnetization, morphology, crystal structure and chemical composition of the products were determined by vibrating sample magnetometry, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction （XRD）, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）. Ferrihydrite underwent aggregation growth and transformed into α-FeO（OH） （goethite） particles, which subsequently transformed into γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles, that became coated with NaCI. The γ-Fe2O3 particles had a flake-like morphology, when prepared from 0.01 mol/L FeCl2 and a FeCl2：NaOH molar ratio of 0.4. The γ-Fe2O3 particles were more spherical, when prepared from a FeCl2：NaOH molar ratio of 0.6. The Fe content of the flake-like particles was lower than that of the spherical particles. Their magnetizations were similar, and the coercivity of the flake-like particles was larger. The differences in morphology and magnetization were attributed to the surface effect, and the difference in coercivity to the shape effect.     

Determining the temperature of petroleum formation from the kinetic properties of petroleum asphaltenes

Knowledge of the timing and location of petroleum formation is important in assessing the extent of available reserves in hydrocarbon-forming basins. This can be predicted from the thermal history of a basin and the kinetic parameters that characterize the thermal breakdown of kerogen in source rocks. At present, the kinetic parameters of kerogen breakdown are experimentally determined using immature rock samples from basin margins, but questions remain about the accuracy of this approach, especially when significant variability is observed within individual source units. Here we show that the kinetics of hydrocarbon generation from petroleum asphaltenes can be used to determine the temperature conditions of the actual source rock at the time of expulsion of the sampled petroleum. This relationship reflects the structural similarity of asphaltenes to the parent kerogen. We expect that our approach may be used as a comparatively simple alternative method for assessing the petroleum generation characteristics of a given basin, which will allow for better estimates of the available oil resources and the risks associated with their exploration.