Supernova Shrapnel Discovered Inside Meteorite
A meteorite that landed on Earth nearly 150 years ago has been found to contain microscopic shrapnel from a star that exploded about the time our solar system was born.
The chemical composition of the Orgueil meteorite, which struck France in 1864, indicates that a nearby star exploded in a supernova around 4.5 billion years ago, right when the sun’s planets were forming. From the faint remnants of the stellar explosion, researchers are now in position to determine what kind of star exploded.
The research could solve the mystery of why levels of a metallic element, chromium, vary from one planet and meteorite to the next.
Source: SPACE.com — Supernova Shrapnel Discovered Inside Meteorite.
sending...
