Radioactive materials are the source of the solar system

A group of international astrophysicists, including Dr. Maria Lugaro from Monash University, have found a new explanation for the origin of the solar system.

The team found that radionuclides found in the oldest meteorites, dating back billions of years, could come from a giant neighbor star, which is 6 times more massive than the sun.

Dr. Lugaro said these findings could change the current thoughts about the origin of the solar system.

He said: 'We have known about the very early occurrence of radionuclides in meteorites since the 1960s, but we do not know their origin. The emergence of radionuclides was thought to be due to a supernova explosion, but this finding suggests that these nuclei are derived from a dying giant star. '

This conclusion is made by combining telescope observations with recently developed theoretical models of stellar evolution and which nuclear reactions occur within stars.

A giant star (left) has 6 times the mass of the sun dying near the early sun (right). The gas is released by the dying star (the red material in the image) to the planetary disc that enriches it in the radioactive nucleus synthesized in the giant star. (Photo: Gabriel Perez Diaz)

Dr. Lugaro commented: 'We need to know the presence of radionuclides in young planetary systems is a common or special event in our galaxy system as this affects progress. chemistry of the first large rocks (mother body of small planets and meteorites) in the solar system. These rocks are thought to be the source of most of the water on Earth, an element that is essential for life. '

He said: 'Within 1 million years of forming the solar system, radioactive nuclei decay inside the rocks, release high-energy photons, causing these rocks to heat up. Since most of the Earth's water is thought to originate from these rocks, the viability of life on Earth depends on the warming history of these rocks, as well as the presence of the nucleus. radiation '.

'What we need to do is study the possibility of a dying giant star that may have existed very close to the early solar system and led to the presence of radionuclides. This will tell us about the location where the solar system is born, as well as the possibility that other young planetary systems are also full of distant nuclei, and ultimately the ability to have water on planets like Earth in other planetary systems'.

Dr. Maria Lugaro (Monash University) pursued this study in collaboration with Amanda Karakas (Mount Stromlo Observatory), Mark van Raai (Utrecht University), and Spanish researchers Josep Maria Trigo-Rodriguez (CSIC and Instituto de Estudios Espaciales de Cataluña), Aníbal García-Hernández and Arturo Manchado, (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias), and Pedro García Lario (European Space Astronomy Center in Madrid).

The study is published in Meteoric & Planetary Science