Explained: New clues to the formation of the solar system found by scientists

Scientists have recently studied a star forming complex Ophiuchus which has offered new insights into the conditions in which the solar system was born. The two scientists who have done the study are namely Douglas N. C. Lin and John Forbes. 

It was published in the journal nature Astronomy. Take a look at the details below. 

About the Study of formation of Solar System:

A region of an active star forming in the Ophiuchus constellation has given astronomers an analog for the formation of our solar system. It also includes the sources of elements found in the primitive meteorites. 

It is also providing information on how our solar system is rich in radioactive elements that are short lived. 

The evidence of this process of enrichment has been done since the 1970s. It was when the scientists were studying mineral inclusions in meteorites concluding that they were pristine remnants of the infant solar system. The radioactive elements could have been blown into the solar system that was quite new at that time by a nearby exploding star, a supernova or a stellar wind from Wolf Rayet, a kind of massive star. 

Take a look at the cloud in the Ophiuchus star-forming region.

What do the Authors have to say?

The co-author Douglas N. C. Lin, professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz said, "Our solar system was most likely formed in a giant molecular cloud together with a young stellar cluster, and one or more supernova events from some massive stars in this cluster contaminated the gas which turned into the sun and its planetary system."

It was also added by them, “although this scenario has been suggested in the past, the strength of this paper is to use multi-wavelength observations and a sophisticated statistical analysis to deduce a quantitative measurement of the model’s likelihood.”

The first author is John Forbes at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics. As per him, the data from space based gamma ray telescopes enabled the detection of gamma rays emitted by short lived radionuclide aluminium 26. He said, “The enrichment process we’re seeing in Ophiuchus is consistent with what happened during the formation of the solar system 5 billion years ago."

He also added, "We now have enough information to say that there is a 59 percent chance it is due to supernovas and a 68 percent chance that it's from multiple sources and not just one supernova."

Also as per him, “many new star systems will be born with aluminum-26 abundances in line with our solar system, but the variation is huge—several orders of magnitude."

He added further,“this matters for the early evolution of planetary systems, since aluminum-26 is the main early heating source. More aluminum-26 probably means drier planets.”

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