The Achievements of the RockStar Group (Perugia) on Astrophysical Modelling and Pallasite Geochemistry

Abstract

In the present work we summarize the first achievements of the RockStar Group of the Department of Physics and Geology (at the University of Perugia, Italy), which is made of a strict collaboration between Physicists and Geologists on astrophysical and planetological studies. The RockStar Group acts on two research lines: (i) astrophysical modeling and (ii) mineralogical and geochemical studies of meteorites. In the first part of the article we review the recent results concerning the development of theoretical modeling of nucleosynthesis and mixing process in asymptotic giant branch. In the second part we report (1) the catalog of the Meteorite collection of University of Perugia and (2) major and trace elements mapping, performed through EPMA and LA-ICP-MS, of the Mineo pallasite, a unique sample hosted by the collection. The new data constrain the Mineo meteorite among the Main Group Pallasites and support the hypothesis of the “early giant impact” formation.