Elucidating evolution processes of Solar System bodies: Approaches by mineralogical study of various kinds of extraterrestrial materials

For the past 30 years, I have performed a mineralogical study of various kinds of extraterrestrial materials focusing on evolution processes of Solar System bodies. The samples analyzed range from primitive chondritic materials returned by spacecrafts to diŠerentiated meteorites including Martian and lunar samples. The ˆrst of these analyzed meteorites was an angrite, one of the oldest known achondrites, in collaboration with researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center, USA. I pointed out the importance of olivine xenocrysts by studying many quenched angrites and showed that bulk compositions of quenched angrites were controlled by resorption degrees of these xenocrysts. Soon I became involved in studying Martian meteorites. In my early works, I found that some shergottite Martian meteorites experienced undercooling of magma and represented parent magma compositions by combining crystallization experimental results. I also revealed that nakhlite Martian meteorites had correlated petrography and mineralogy that could be explained by crystallization at diŠerent locations (burial depths) in a common cooling cumulate pile. The presence of remarkable shock features (e.g., darkening of olivine) in Martian meteorites is striking, and it appears that prolonged postshock heating history largely erased the highpressure polymorphs in many cases. My research deals with primitive solar system materials including Wild 2 cometary particles and Itokawa asteroidal particles. Studying these samples using electron beam and synchrotron radiation analyses has strengthened the interpretations of their origins. Another important tool employed is electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis. I applied this technique to identify several new minerals such as dmitryivanovite, andreyivanovite, and kushiroite in early 2000s. EBSD was also used to analyze preferred crystallographic orientation of olivine in brachinites, revealing rigorous magmatic and/or rheological activities in the parent body. At present I am analyzing Ryugu samples returned by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft as a preliminary analysis team member, which broadens our understanding of the formation and evolution processes of solid materials in the early Solar System.