About

Larry Nittler is a cosmochemist who studies the origin and evolution of stars, the galaxy, and the solar system. His research involves laboratory analysis of extraterrestrial materials such as meteorites and samples returned from comets and asteroids, as well as planetary remote sensing via spacecraft. He has played leading roles in the analysis of comet and solar wind samples returned by NASA’s Stardust and Genesis missions, respectively, and served as deputy principal investigator on NASA’s MESSENGER mission to Mercury. Currently, he is a NASA Participating Scientist on the Japanese asteroid sample-return mission, Hayabusa2, and a member of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo Mercury mission team. Nittler has received the Alfred O. Nier prize of the Meteoritical Society in 2001 and was named a fellow of the same society in 2010. Asteroid 5992 Nittler is named in his honor.

Research topics

• Physics
• Astrobiology
• Chemistry
• Geology
• Mineralogy
• Aerospace engineering
• Materials science
• Geography
• Environmental chemistry
• Engineering
• Astronomy
• Organic chemistry
• Archaeology

Selected publications

• Late fluid flow in a primitive asteroid revealed by Lu–Hf isotopes in Ryugu

  Nature · 2025-09-10 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Clues for Solar System Formation from Meteorites and their Parent Bodies

  ArXiv.org · 2025-06-03

  preprintOpen access

  Understanding the origin of comets requires knowledge of how the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas 4.567 Gyr ago. Here, a review is presented of how the remnants of this formation process, meteorites and to a lesser extent comets, shed light on Solar System evolution. The planets formed by a process of collisional agglomeration during the first hundred million years of Solar System history. The vast majority of the original population of planetary building blocks (~100 km-scale planetesimals) was either incorporated into the planets or removed from the system, via dynamical ejection or through a collision with the Sun. Only a small fraction of the original rocky planetesimals survive to this day in the form of asteroids (which represent a total of ~0.05% of Earth's mass) and comets. Meteorites are fragments of asteroids that have fallen to Earth, thereby providing scientists with samples of Solar System-scale processes for laboratory-based analysis. Meteorite datasets complement cometary datasets, which are predominantly obtained via remote observation as there are few cometary samples currently available for laboratory-based measurements. This chapter discusses how analysis of the mineralogical, elemental, and isotopic characteristics of meteorites provides insight into (i) the origin of matter that formed planets, (ii) the pressure, temperature, and chemical conditions that prevailed during planet formation, and (iii) a precise chronological framework of planetary accretion. Also examined is the use of stable isotope variations and nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies as constraints on the dynamics of the disk and planet formation, and how these data are integrated into new models of Solar System formation. It concludes with a discussion of Earth's accretion and its source of volatile elements, including water and organic species.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Citation for Dr. Conel M. O'D. Alexander, Leonard Medalist, 2025

  Meteoritics and Planetary Science · 2025-08-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

  PublisherDOI

• “Canode”: A conical partially magnetic anode for efficient negative ion extraction from duoplasmatron ion sources

  Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B Nanotechnology and Microelectronics Materials Processing Measurement and Phenomena · 2025-06-24

  article

  We report on the design and performance of an improved duoplasmatron ion source for secondary ion mass spectrometers. The source is designed specifically to optimize extraction of negative oxygen ions while suppressing electron extraction using a built-in magnetic asymmetry in the anode electrode. Other changes from conventional designs are (a) drilling the ion extraction aperture directly into the magnetic steel anode rather than in a refractory (nonmagnetic) metal insert, thereby eliminating a magnetic “hole” that acts to counter the desired magnetic concentration of the discharge at the aperture and (b) forming the anode into a conical shape convex toward the intermediate electrode to increase the magnetic field concentration at the extraction aperture, hence the term “Canode.” The built-in magnetic asymmetry allows the width and shape of the intermediate electrode to be varied to further optimize magnetic concentration of the discharge. Tests were performed with both ims 6f and NanoSIMS 50L instruments manufactured by Cameca Instruments, Inc. (Fitchburg, WI, USA). In the ims 6f, the Canode design gave O− primary ion currents up to a factor of five greater than the factory ion source design. In the NanoSIMS 50L, the Canode source produced a focused O− ion beam at the sample with a diameter of 50 nm, identical to the performance of the radio-frequency Hyperion ion source developed by Oregon Physics (Beaverton, OR, USA) and offered as an option by Cameca.

  PublisherDOI

• Presolar oxide grains

  Elsevier eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Co-evolution of organics and water in experimentally shocked Murchison and EET 90628 chondrites

  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · 2025-06-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Synthetic Data Exploration of MESSENGER/XRS Spatial Resolution and Sensitivity Limits

  elib (German Aerospace Center) · 2025-03-01

  otherSenior author

  The NASA MESSENGER mission, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015, provided a wealth of data on the planet's surface composition, topography, and geology. One of the key instruments aboard MESSENGER was the X-ray Spectrometer (XRS)[1], which measured the elemental composition of Mercury's surface by detecting X-ray fluorescence emitted from the planet's surface when it was bombarded by solar X-rays. While the XRS provided valuable insights into Mercury's global composition, it suffered from limitations in spatial resolution, particularly at southern latitudes. This is due to the instrument's design and the geometry of MESSENGER’s highly elliptical polar orbit. To address this limitation, we propose a novel approach to enhance the spatial resolution of XRS-derived compositional maps. By leveraging the redundancy in the XRS data and employing advanced image processing techniques, we aim to extract finer-scale details from the XRS mosaics. This method, which we refer to as synthetic hyper-resolution, has the potential to reveal new insights into Mercury's surface composition and geological history.

• A Pyroxenite Mantle on Mercury? Experimental Insights from Enstatite Chondrite Melting at Pressures up to 5 GPa

  ArXiv.org · 2025-04-14

  preprintOpen access

  Enstatite chondrites (EC) are potential source material for the accretion of Mercury due to their reduced nature and enrichment in volatile elements. Understanding their melting properties is therefore important to better assess a scenario where Mercury formed from these chondrites. Here, we present experimental data on the partial melting of a modified EH4 Indarch EC, which was adjusted to have 18\% more metallic Si than SiO$_2$ in mass, yielding an oxygen fugacity of 3.7 below the iron--wüstite redox buffer and 12 wt\% Si in the metal. Experiments were performed from 0.5 to 5 GPa. Results indicate that the stability field of enstatite expands relative to olivine. This expansion is likely due to the presence of Ca--S and Mg--S complexes in the silicate melt, which enhance SiO$_2$ activity and promote enstatite crystallization. Additionally, sulfides show enrichment in Mg and Ca, up to 22 and 13 wt\% respectively, the main remaining cations being Fe, Cr, and Mn. These high Mg and Ca contents are observed at low temperatures and high silica content in the silicate melt, respectively. High-pressure melts (2 to 5 GPa, 160--400 km depth in Mercury) are Mg-rich, similar to those in Mercury's high-magnesium region (HMR), while low-pressure melts (0.5 to 1 GPa, 40--80 km depth) are Si-rich, comparable to the northern volcanic plains (NVP). Results suggest that a large fraction of Mercury's surface aligns compositionally with these melts, implying that Mercury's mantle could predominantly have a pyroxenitic composition. However, regions with differing compositions, such as aluminum-rich areas like the Caloris basin, suggest local variability in mantle geochemistry. Overall, our results show that if Mercury formed from materials similar to EC, batch melting of its primitive pyroxenite mantle would yield magmas with compositions resembling those of most rocks observed on the surface.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Pyroxenite mantle on Mercury? Experimental insights from enstatite chondrite melting at pressures up to 5 GPa

  Icarus · 2025-04-11 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Zirconium isotope composition indicates <i>s</i>‐process depletion in samples returned from asteroid Ryugu

  Meteoritics and Planetary Science · 2024-11-25 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Nucleosynthetic isotope variations are powerful tracers to determine genetic relationships between meteorites and planetary bodies. They can help to link material collected by space missions to known meteorite groups. The Hayabusa 2 mission returned samples from the Cb‐type asteroid (162173) Ryugu. The mineralogical, chemical, and isotopic characteristics of these samples show strong similarities to carbonaceous chondrites and in particular CI chondrites. The nucleosynthetic isotope compositions of Ryugu overlap with CI chondrites for several elements (e.g., Cr, Ti, Fe, and Zn). In contrast to these isotopes, which are of predominately supernovae origin, s ‐process variations in Mo isotope data are similar to those of carbonaceous chondrites, but even more s‐ process depleted. To further constrain the origin of this depletion and test whether this signature is also present for other s ‐process elements, we report Zr isotope compositions for three bulk Ryugu samples (A0106, A0106‐A0107, C0108) collected from the Hayabusa 2 mission. The data are complemented with that of terrestrial rock reference materials, eucrites, and carbonaceous chondrites. The Ryugu samples are characterized by distinct 96 Zr enrichment relative to Earth, indicative of a s ‐process depletion. Such depletion is also observed for carbonaceous chondrites and eucrites, in line with previous Zr isotope work, but it is more extreme in Ryugu, as observed for Mo isotopes. Since s ‐process Zr and Mo are coupled in mainstream SiC grains, these distinct s‐ process variations might be due to SiC grain depletion in the analyzed materials, potentially caused by incomplete sample digestion, because the Ryugu samples were dissolved on a hotplate only to avoid high blank levels for other elements (e.g., Cr). However, local depletion of SiC grains cannot be excluded. An alternative, equally possible scenario is that aqueous alteration redistributed anomalous, s ‐process‐depleted, Zr on a local scale, for example, into Ca‐phosphates or phyllosilicates.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• C. M. O'd. Alexander

  Carnegie Institution for Science

  398 shared

• Sean C. Solomon

  280 shared

• R. M. Stroud

  United States Naval Research Laboratory

  256 shared

• R. Starr

  181 shared

• H. Busemann

  165 shared

• J. Aléon

  Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie

  149 shared

• P. Höppe

  Planetary Science Institute

  147 shared

• T. J. McCoy

  140 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Washington University in St. Louis

  1996

• B.A.

  Cornell University

  1991

Awards & honors

• Alfred O. Nier prize of the Meteoritical Society (2001)
• Fellow of the Meteoritical Society (2010)
• Asteroid 5992 Nittler is named in his honor