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Austin Power’s nemesis Dr Evil was always up to no good, punching holes in ‘the protective layer around the Earth, which we scientists call the “Ozone Layer”’ with his ‘sophisticated heat beam which we called a “laser”’. Of course we … Continue reading
Well we made it!!! After hours of delayed flights, missed connections, fully booked alternatives, planes turned back due to faulty toilets, no sleep and extremely bad treatment at the hands of US Airways we got to Houston! 5 of us … Continue reading
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A short time ago I wrote about some of our work analysing the xenon in zircons from the Jack Hills region of Australia, the oldest known material on Earth. If you think trying to unravel xenon contributions from 2 sources … Continue reading
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Jack Hills, Western Australia – a hot, dry and barren place where very little lives. But it is here that the oldest known materials on Earth have survived from shortly after the formation of the Earth until the present day. … Continue reading
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As dawn is breaking on the UK tomorrow the Dawn spacecraft will have begun its year-long orbit of the asteroid Vesta. Data will start being gathered in August. Dawn is a ground-breaking mission, the first to orbit a main-belt asteroid … Continue reading
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Those of you who have been following this blog may have noticed that there are quite a number of posts about xenon. We even have a special mass spectrometer which can only measure xenon. But why? Why are we so … Continue reading
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Our RELAX instrument measures the ratios of different xenon isotopes. We can analyse samples so small that they contain fewer than a thousand atoms of xenon. The graphic below gives you an idea of how small an amount of material … Continue reading
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Antarctica, 2006; the Graves Nunataks ice-field: a meteorite is found that is different to any found before. Graves Nunataks 06129 is an ancient achondritic meteorite that originated in the upper crust of an asteroid. Its composition is dominated (>75%) by … Continue reading
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What are noble gases? Why are we interested in them? And what do they tell us about how the earth and solar system formed? Helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon. These gases are very rare on Earth and in meteorites. … Continue reading
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RELAX is an instrument used to measure xenon isotope ratios. Contrary to popular believe, this does not mean we sit around the lab with our feet up all day! RELAX stands for Refrigerator Enhanced Laser Analyser for Xenon. It is … Continue reading
