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Popular mechanics
Two years ago, a team of scientists used an incredibly advanced telescope to observe two neutron stars from a distant galaxy colliding in a super explosion. The force of this explosion has reached our galaxy hundreds of millions of light years away.
But according to new research, we did not need to search hundreds of millions of light-years to find colliding neutron stars. That's because such a collision occurred in our own backyard a long time ago.
In a new study, researchers at Columbia University and the University of Florida found clues to the collision in the same region as our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. This precedes the formation of the Earth about 100 million years ago. The researchers estimate that our solar system was about 1000 light years from the boom when that happened.
Scientists were able to gather as much information about an event prior to our planet, thanks to the remains of materials from the blast. When neutron stars collide, they undergo a unique fusion process that creates dozens of elements and isotopes that can not be formed otherwise. The researchers found many of these elements in meteorites that crashed on Earth.
Many of these elements are radioactive, so they break down into other elements at specific speeds. By measuring the number of these elements already decomposed, scientists can calculate when the collision between neutron stars has occurred.
Similarly, by measuring the total amount of each element of the collision, scientists can determine how far away the explosion was from us.
These elements include a small amount of our heavy metals such as gold and platinum, radioactive elements such as uranium and other heavy elements such as iodine. Part of the iodine – an eyelash that is well worth it – lies in the body of each of us, a small remnant that reminds us that one of the biggest explosions of the universe is over. is already produced right next to it.
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