UC Santa Cruz<\/a> and co-author of the study, said: \u201cOur 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.<\/p>\n\u201cAlthough 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\u2019s likelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Forbes, the first author of the research from the Flatiron Institute\u2019s Center for Computational Astrophysics, said: \u201cData from space-based gamma-ray telescopes enable the detection of gamma rays emitted by the short-lived radionuclide aluminium-26. These are challenging observations. We can only convincingly detect it in two star-forming regions, and the best data are from the Ophiuchus complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
Examining the enigmatic aluminium-26<\/h3>\n The cloud complex of the Ophiuchus constellation contains various dense protostellar cores in different phases of star formation and protoplanetary disc development. This represents the earliest formation stages of a planetary system. The researchers combined imaging data ranging from millimetres to gamma rays, enabling them to visualise a flow of aluminium-26 from a close-by star cluster in the Ophiuchus star-forming region.<\/p>\n
Forbes said: \u201cThe enrichment process we see in Ophiuchus is consistent with what happened during the formation of the solar system 5 billion years ago. Once we saw this nice example of how the process might happen, we set about trying to model the nearby star cluster that produced the radionuclides we see today in gamma rays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subsequently, Forbes created an innovative model that accounts for every massive star that could have potentially existed in this region, including its age, mass, and the possibility of it resulting in a supernova. It also incorporated the potential yields of aluminium-26 from supernovas and stellar winds, all of which allowed him to estimate the likelihoods of varying scenarios to produce the aluminium-26 displayed today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now have enough information to say that there is a 59% chance it is due to supernovas and a 68% chance that it\u2019s from multiple sources and not just one supernova,\u201d Forbes commented.<\/p>\n
Lin said: \u201cThis type of statistical analysis assigns probabilities to scenarios that astronomers have been debating for the past 50 years. This is the new direction for astronomy, to quantify the likelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novel investigation highlights that the number of short-lived radionuclides can vary dramatically in forming star systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany new star systems will be born with aluminium-26 abundances in line with our solar system, but the variation is huge \u2013 several orders of magnitude,\u201d Forbes said. \u201cThis matters for the early evolution of planetary systems since aluminium-26 is the main early heating source. More aluminium-26 probably means drier planets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jo\u00e3o Alves, a co-author of the research, obtained the infrared data as part of the European Southern Observatory\u2019s<\/a> VISION survey of nearby stellar nurseries by employing the VISTA telescope in Chile. This allowed the astronomers to observe the star-forming complex by looking through the dusty clouds that envelop it.<\/p>\nHe said: \u201cThere is nothing special about Ophiuchus as a star formation region. It is just a typical configuration of gas and young massive stars, so our results should be representative of the enrichment of short-lived radioactive elements in star and planet formation across the Milky Way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Astronomers have identified that star formation in the Ophiuchus constellation may explain how our solar system came into existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":14121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[771],"tags":[818],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Ophiuchus constellation analysis reveals the inception of our solar system<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n