2009/05/01 by P. Ábrahám, A. Juhász, Á. Juhász +11 · 178 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Amorphous solid #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrobiology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Chemistry #Crystallography #Formation and evolution of the Solar System #Materials science #Nebula #Physics #Silicate #Solar System #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature08004
published in Nature 459(7244), 224-226 (Nature Portfolio) · 13 pages of PDF, including Supplementary Information
openalex publication_date 2009/05/01 · arxiv created 2009/06/17 · arxiv updated 2010/11/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Our Solar System originated in interstellar gas and dust; the latter is in the form of amorphous silicate particles and carbonaceous dust. The composition of cometary material shows that a significant fraction of the amorphous silicates was transformed into crystalline form during the early evolution of the protosolar nebula. How and when this transformation happened has been controversial, with the main options being heating by the young Sun or shock heating. Here we report mid-infrared features in the outburst spectrum of the young solar-like star EX Lupi that were not present in quiescence. We attribute them to crystalline forsterite; the crystals were produced via thermal annealing in the surface layer of the inner disk by heat from the outburst, a process that has hitherto not been considered. The observed lack of cold crystals excludes shock heating at larger radii.