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Topics: Astrophysics, Interstellar, Plasma, Supernovae, Radiation
Scientists have found new evidence that Earth has been moving through the remains of exploded stars for at least the last 33,000 years.
In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Australian researchers describes how they extracted a special isotope of iron called iron-60 from five deep-sea sediment samples using mass spectrometry.
That’s illuminating because as the researchers wrote in their paper, the isotope is “predominantly produced in massive stars and ejected in supernova explosions.” In other words, iron-60 is left over after a star explodes.
And because iron-60 is radioactive and decays in 15 million years, the theory is that our planet is continuously being dusted with the stuff as it’s moving through the “Local Interstellar Cloud,” a region of unclear origins made up of gas, dust, and plasma.
Scientists: Earth Moving Through Radioactive Debris of Exploded Stars, Victor Tangermann, Futurism
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