Supernova Shrapnel Found In Meteorite

coondoggie writes "Talk about finding a needle in a cosmic haystack. Scientists this week said they found microscopic shrapnel in a meteorite of a star they say exploded around the birth of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago."

Comments

Supernova Shrapnel???

[snookerhog]

no I didn't RTFA and it has been a while since my last astrophysics class, but isn't any atom heavier than Fe technically supernova shrapnel? I always understood that supernovas were the only place that there was enough energy to make these heavier atoms, no?

Re:Supernova Shrapnel???

[radtea]

isn't any atom heavier than Fe technically supernova shrapnel?

Not if you consider "shrapnel" to mean "fragments that are small but not gaseous". The point here is that a nanoscale grain of chromium54 has been found, which suggests it cooled out of the supernova gas cloud and was driven into the meteroite during a collision, so it is a more-or-less pristine piece of supernova condensate that has not been processed further, the way the iron on Earth has, for example.

That's a fairly interesting find, I'd say.

Re:Lots of supernova remnants around

[kurokame]

Almost right. You can only really make those heavier elements through processes which occur during a supernova, yes. But although lighter elements (say, carbon) can be made during normal stellar lifetimes...how are you going to get it out?

I found a supernova remnant this morning. It was my foot.

The article is a little less than clear about the actual research that occurred, as usual. From the sound of it, I suspect that what they found was discrete ejecta - a blob of material which recognizably came from a specific supernova which had not mixed with other material. This is cool since it gives us a sample which we can study in that specific context.