Antarctic ice cores tagged posts

Surrounded by stardust: Antarctic ice cores confirm Earth is accumulating iron-60 from local interstellar cloud

Surrounded by stardust
Path of the solar system through the Local Interstellar Cloud. The cloud’s profile is preserved as an interstellar fingerprint in Antarctic ice. Credit: B. Schröder/HZDR/ NASA/Goddard/Adler/U.Chicago/Wesleyan

Our solar system is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old...

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