The natural abundance of soil nitrogen (N) stable isotope (δ15N) is a good proxy indicating the integrative soil N cycling processes and fluxes over a long time scale.

The nitrogen found on Earth doesn’t match the nitrogen found in the Sun or in the tails of comets. Those sources have nitrogen isotope fractions that differ from those on Earth.

The nitrogen abundance of the silicate Earth is a result of both early evolution and late-stage accretion, but the contribution of late-stage accretion to the abundance of other volatiles is limited.

Since ammonia is the major carrier of nitrogen in a comet, it is necessary to clear it from the relative abundance of its isotopes to understand how 15NH2 separates in cometary molecules.

In models of the evolution of the solar system, astronomers therefore had to assume that the ratio of nitrogen isotopes was the same throughout the solar system as it is in Earth’s atmosphere – that ...

Most nitrogen comes as the isotope nitrogen-14, with seven protons and seven neutrons. But physicists say they have glimpsed a far more elusive variant with just two neutrons.

The analysis relies on atoms of nitrogen with different weights, called nitrogen isotopes. The heavier version, nitrogen-15, accumulates farther up the food chain.

Through experiments performed in the Center for Isotope Geochemistry, the goal of the lab is to analyze nitrogen in minuscule quantities. The center houses an isotope ratio mass spectrometer, an ...