Pierre Haenecour

Astrobiology, Cosmochemistry, Planetary Astronomy, Small Bodies

“Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?” _{Victor Hugo (Les Misérables, 1862)}

My research focus on the building blocks and early history of the Solar System history, and the origin of life through coordinated in-situ laboratory analyses of circumstellar and interstellar dust grains and organic molecules in unequiliberated planetary materials (e.g., meteorites, micrometeorites and interplanetary dust particles) using nano and microanalytical techniques in the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis and Planetary Materials Research Group. Circumstellar dust grains, also called stardust or presolar grains, formed in previous generations of stars, were included in the materials in the molecular cloud from which our solar system formed, and were preserved in asteroids and comets. As bona fide dust grains from stars, the laboratory analysis of presolar grains  provides a 'snapshot' of conditions (e.g., nucleosynthesis, temperature, pressure and dust condensation process) in their parent stars at the time of the grain's formation. Furthermore, as building blocks our own Solar System, the comparison of the chemical composition, abundance and distribution of presolar grains provide us insight into the early stages of solar system formation.

I also use in-situ heating experiments inside electron microscopes (both SEM and TEM) to constrain variations in elemental and isotopic compositions, mineralogies, microstructures, textures and morphologies of bioessential compounds in function of the conditions (e.g., temperature and time) of thermal processes on asteroids. As prebiotic components, understanding the thermal history of these materials is crucial to unveil their origin(s) and evolution, as well as to constrain the delivery of bioessential elements to the Earth.

My group is also actively working on getting ready for the analysis of samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu  that are being returned to Earth by the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission, and on the NASA Alien Earths project to advance our understanding of how nearby planetary systems formed and which systems are more likely to harbor habitable worlds.

Bio: Pierre grew up in Brussels (Belgium) and graduated with B.A. and M.S. degrees in Geology and Geochemistry from the Free University of Brussels. He then moved to St. Louis (Missouri) and obtained a M.A. degree and a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis. His doctoral research work focused on the identification and coordinated micro-analytical study of and circumstellar grains (also called presolar or stardust grains) in primitive meteorites and fine-grained micrometeorites.

His background is in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, from terrestrial samples (e.g., Pb and Zn isotopes in Archean komatiitic lava flows) to primitive extraterrestrial samples (e.g., meteorites and micrometeorites), using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and a variety of in situ ion- and electron-microscopy techniques (e.g., secondary ion mass spectrometry, Auger and Raman spectroscopy, focused-ion-beam scanning-electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy).