Mixing of minerals and water in the early Solar System: a nano-XRD-CT study of chondritic micrometeorites and meteorites

Understanding the fluxes of matter in the early Solar System is important to understand the processes of formation of planets. In particular, Earth formed in a water-poor area of the disk, and probably got hydrated by the input of external sources. Using nanofocus X-ray diffraction computed tomography, we aim at 1) characterizing hydrated minerals in hydrated micrometeorites (MM), still poorly characterized, and 2) characterizing the mineralogy of ultra-carbonaceous MMs which are exceptional samples from cometary regions. Detecting and characterizing minute amounts of hydrous phases require high spatial resolution and sensitivity, because of the size and the structural complexity of the grains. A previous experiment performed has shown the feasibility of a structural study of sub-µm hydrated phases by nano-XRD-CT, despite limitations. Taking advantage of the upgrade of ID11 at ESRF, we aim at better understanding the formation processes of these early Solar System materials.