On the meteorite that fell in Antarctica, traces of a supernova explosion that died before the birth of the Sun

By cosmic standards, the Sun is a young star, its age is only about 4.6 billion years. Before the appearance

The sun in the universe lived and died wholegenerations of stars, but traces of their existence are extremely rarely found in our day. The grains of pre-solar star dust remain in cosmic objects — comets and asteroids, and researchers have found one of such bodies.

Astrophysicists have found dust particles known asLAP-149, inside a primitive chondrite meteorite. Using ion and electron microscopy, the researchers found that the grain consists entirely of graphite and has an extremely high level of carbon isotope called 13C.

Like real stardust, such pre-solarthe grains give us an idea of ​​the building blocks from which our solar system was formed. They also provide us with a direct snapshot of the state of the star at the time this grain was formed.

Pierre Henekur, lead author of the study

Previously, scientists from the NASA Goddard Space Center found that small meteorites, which constantly fall on the surface of the moon, knock out up to 200 tons of water per year.