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Oxygen in the Sun

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, Enrico Fermi Institute, Chicago Center for Cosmochemistry, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, U.S.A., a-davis{at}uchicago.edu

Ko Hashizume

Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan, kohash{at}ess.sci.osaka-u.ac.jp

Marc Chaussidon

Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 15 rue Notre Dame des Pauvres, 54501 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy Cedex, France, chocho{at}crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr

Trevor R. Ireland

Research School of Earth Sciences, College of Science, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 Australia, trevor.ireland{at}anu.edu.au

Carlos Allende Prieto and David L. Lambert

McDonald Observatory and Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, U.S.A., callende{at}astro.as.utexas.edu, dll{at}astro.as.utexas.edu

We review elemental and isotopic abundances of oxygen in the Sun and their implications for solar physics and Solar System formation. The oxygen content of the Sun, expressed as the O/H atom ratio, is 468 ppm. This value, obtained relatively recently, is significantly lower than earlier estimates, but is supported by observations of several photospheric lines. The new, lower solar oxygen abundance (and a new, lower solar carbon abundance) are compatible with many astrophysical constraints but are in conflict with helioseismology-based constraints on the standard model of the Sun. The oxygen isotopic composition of the Sun is surprisingly poorly known, despite the fact that the Sun contains nearly all (~98%) of the Solar System’s oxygen. Spectroscopy of the solar photosphere suggests a slight enhancement in ¹⁸O/¹⁶O compared to terrestrial composition, but with a precision of 6%. One measurement of solar oxygen trapped in lunar metal grains indicates that the Sun is depleted in ¹⁶O by a few percent, whereas another indicates an enrichment of similar magnitude; some models predict that the Sun is enriched in ¹⁶O by a few percent and others predict that solar and terrestrial oxygen are of similar isotopic composition. It is hoped that forthcoming isotopic measurements on solar wind sampled by the Genesis sample return mission will bring some closure to this issue.

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