Low-mass Supernova tagged posts

Supercomputer model of a low-mass supernova. Credit: Bernhard Mueller, MNRAS 453, 287-310 (2015)

International research is using new computer models and evidence from meteorites to show that a low-mass supernova triggered the formation of our solar system. The research is published in the most recent issue of leading scientific journal Nature Communications.About 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust that eventually formed our solar system was disturbed. The ensuing gravitational collapse formed the proto-Sun with a surrounding disc where the planets were born. A supernova – a star exploding at the end of its life-cycle –would have enough energy to induce the collapse of such a gas cloud.

“Before this model there was only inconclusive evidence to support this theory,” said Prof Al...

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA About 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust that eventually formed our solar system was disturbed. The ensuing gravitational collapse formed the proto-Sun with a surrounding disc where the planets were born. That cloud might be similar to some region in this much larger complex of gas and dust about 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus observed by NASA’s Spitzer Telescope.

A research team led by University of Minnesota School of Physics and Astronomy Professor Yong-Zhong Qian uses new models and evidence from meteorites to show that a low-mass supernova triggered the formation of our solar system. About 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust that eventually formed our solar system was disturbed...