Slashdot Mirror
Supernova May Explain How Planets are Formed
ExE122 writes "A young pulsar that formed from a supernova which happened about 100,000 years ago and is sitting 13,000 light years away may solve some questions about the origins of Earth. From the article: 'Scientists think they have solved the mystery of how planets form around a star born in a violent supernova explosion, saying they have detected for the first time a swirling disk of debris from which planets can rise. The discovery is surprising because the dusty disk orbiting the pulsar, or dead star, resembles the cloud of gas and dust from which Earth emerged. Scientists say the latest finding should shed light on how planetary systems form.'"
A note about the article is that any planets that might be formed from the cloud of debris would be orbiting a pulsar Even if it has planets, it doesn't tell us much about how our own solar system could have developed.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Have scientists actually seen the cloud of gas and dust from which Earth emerged 4.6 billion years ago, or is this just wild speculation?
Ever heard of Zodiacal light?
Any cloud of gas would have been blown out of the system at the early stage of the Sun's evolution (T-Tauri phase), but some dust remains in the solar system. We see that today, too.
The article says that any planets which form are likely to be uninhabitable because they're, to put it bluntly, made out of reactor waste.
Why couldn't you have radiation-tolerant species?
If they went on to have multicellular descendants, then intelligent ones, those descendants could build cheap nuclear spacecraft including Orion-class vehicles and operate them without fear of radiation poisoning.
I gues it all depends on what your definition of "old" is. Different things can have different ages. The uranium was formed in a supernova explosion, but I doubt that a single supernova provided all of the heavy elements that make up the earth. Much more likely, way back in the "good old days" when what would become the solar system was just a tiny part of a vast cloud of gas on the outskirts of the galaxy, many supernova were happening in stellar nurseries, each of which ejected heavy elements which contributed to the chemical composition of the cloud. Eventually one or more of these explosions also triggered the gravitational collapse of the cloud (or this part of it) which formed the sun and our neighbors. So some of the uranium would be about 5 billion years old (b.y.o), some might be six, and some seven or more. Same thing for the other elements as well. Of course, the hydrogen atoms that make up the water in our oceans are thirteen billion years old. The helium could be anywhere from thirteen to five b.y.o. So how old is the earth as a planet? That's easy. 4.5 b.y.o. Asking "as a planet" refers to the organization of the constituents, not the age of the material itself.
There's tons of fascinating material about the development of solar systems and planets available. Even the older stuff is interesting, and is generally still roughly correct. Granted, we're learning much more nowadays with more refined detail, and the models we have can be tested against better observations that weren't possible to make a few decades ago. It's a story well worth looking into.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
thats a big bloody stork