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Supernova Shrapnel Found In Meteorite

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-missed-the-dinosaurs dept.

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."

3 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Extreme sharpshooting by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Davy Crocket didn't have > 2 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 tons of bullets either.

  2. Lots of supernova remnants around by GlobalEcho · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Everything on this earth heavier than lead (atomic number 82) comes from supernovae. And most of the other heavy stuff (heavier than iron) comes from them as well.

    So we live among a lot of supernova remnants.

  3. Re:Supernova Shrapnel??? by ImprovOmega · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    Iron is kind of a ground-state on the periodic table. Below that, more energy is required to keep an atom together (hence, why fusion works to release energy), above that it takes less energy to have the atom be smaller (hence, why fission *also* releases energy). Iron is the direction everything trends towards. When every last drop of energy has been squeezed out of the universe, the final super-massive black hole of everything will be made up of a giant ball of iron.