Researchers have found dust from an exploded star, or supernova, in snow from Antarctica and it could be 20 million years old
The discovery could provide lessons about the solar system's history and place in its surrounding environment, the study, published August 12 in the Physical Review Letters, said.A supernova occurs when a star explodes and produces clouds or gas and dust enriched with radioisotopes. Some of that dust from one or more stars, according to the study, fell to Earth sometime in the last 20 million years. Now it's been found in snow taken from the sparsely inhabited continent.
Materials in it were incinerated and tested using equipment sensitive enough to detect anomalies.The samples tested positive for iron-60.Most iron in the universe is iron-56. Iron-60, which has more neutrons making it unstable to radioactive decay, is present on Earth only from either cosmic explosions or nuclear weapons. Researchers were able to determine that the most likely source of the iron-60 found in the Antarctic snow was star dust, Koll said.
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