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History of the solar environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

Kurt Marti
Affiliation:
University of California at San Diego, Dept. of Chemistry (0317), 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92093-0317
Bernard Lavielle
Affiliation:
University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Laboratoire de Chimie Nucléaire Analytique, et Bio-environnementale (CNAB), Domaine Le Haut Vigneau - BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex, France
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Abstract

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Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) provide information on the solar neighborhood during the sun's motion in the galaxy. There is now considerable evidence for GCR acceleration by shock waves of supernova in active star-forming regions (OB associations) in the galactic spiral arms. During times of passage into star-forming regions increases in the GCR-flux are expected. Recent data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) are shedding light on the structure of the Milky Way and of its star-forming-regions in spiral arms. Records of flux variations may be found in solar system detectors, and iron meteorites with GCR-exposure times of several hundred million years have long been considered to be potential detectors (Voshage, 1962). Variable concentration ratios of GCR-produced stable and radioactive nuclides, with varying half-lives and therefore integration times, were reported by Lavielle et al. (1999), indicating a recent 38% GCR-flux increase. Potential flux recorders consisting of different pairs of nuclides can measure average fluxes over different time scales (Lavielle et al., 2007; Mathew and Marti, 2008). Specific characteristics of two pairs of recorders (81Kr-Kr and 129I-129Xe) are the properties of self-correction for GCR-shielding (flux variability within meteorites of varying sizes). The 81Kr-Kr method (Marti, 1967) is based on Kr isotope ratios, while stable 129Xe is the decay product of the radionuclide 129I, which is produced by secondary neutron reactions on Te in troilites of iron meteorites. The two chronometers provide records of the average GCR flux over 1 and 100 million year time scales, respectively.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2009

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