Home

Our group seeks to understand the origin of the Solar System in the broader context of the local Galaxy through analyses of extraterrestrial materials (rocks and dust from asteroids and comets, circumstellar and interstellar grains, and samples of the solar wind).

We are a part of the Physics Department and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and collaborate closely with the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Follow the links for more information.

News

Posted on

Lunar & Planetary Science Conference Abstracts

Today is one of the most exciting/stressful days of the year — LPSC abstract deadline day! Our group submitted a lot of great abstracts today — covering topics ranging from the Sun to the asteroid belt to distant supernovae. Tomorrow is commonly known as the least productive day in planetary science.

Posted on

New NASA Grant: I-Xe Dating

Olga Pravdivtseva was awarded a NASA grant to use the iodine-xenon radiometric chronometer to investigate the formation and alteration of components in the CK and CV carbonaceous chondrites. Olga is one of the world’s experts in this technique which provides us with exquisite time resolution to understand processes in the early Solar System. With these measurements, it …

Continue reading “New NASA Grant: I-Xe Dating”

Posted on

ALMA images of protoplanetary disks

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) released amazing images of twenty protoplanetary disks in the early stages (first few million years) of planet formation from the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). Our group studies these processes in our own Solar System using rocks that were around then.