Presolar grains are bona-fide stardust particles that condensed in the death throes of stars and were incorporated into the solar nebula 4.5 Ga ago. Some of these samples survived unaltered until today and can be found in and extracted from primitve meteorites. These grains recorded the nucleosynthetic fingerprint of their parent stars and are analyzed to elucidate stellar nucleosynthesis and galactic chemical evolution.
In this talk I introduce how we process these grains in the lab to gain insight into astrophysical problems. Measurement techniques, limitations, as well as overview of scientific insights that were possible from isotope measurements of presolar grains are discussed.
Reto Trappitsch
Scientist
Experimental astrophysicist / cosmochemist with ties and interest in code development and numerical modeling.