Extraterrestrial stone brings first supernova clues to Earth

by University of South Africa

According to new chemistry, the stone named "hypatia" from the Egyptian desert could be the first evidence of an Ia explosion. Some of the most energetic events in the universe are rare supernovas.

This is the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Icarus.

Belyanin and Kramers have been looking at chemistry clues in a small fragment of the Hypatia Stone. The origin of the stone was eliminated in their new research. They have put together a time line of the formation of Earth, our sun and the other planets in our solar system.

A time line.

A red giant star collapsed into a white dwarf. The collapse would have been inside a huge dust cloud.

The white dwarf was in a system with a second star. The white dwarf star eventually becomes the other star. The white dwarf exploded inside the dust cloud as a type of Ia.

The gas atoms which remained of the supernova Ia started sticking to the dust cloud after cooling.

The gas atoms from the explosion were caught in the surrounding dust cloud, which eventually formed Hypatia.

The mix of dust and gas never interacted with other clouds.

Millions of years would pass, and eventually the bubble would become solid in a Cosmic Dust bunny way. Some time in the early stages of formation of our solar system, the parent body of hypatia would become a solid rock.

The process probably happened in the outer part of our solar system, in the Oort cloud or in the Kuiper belt.

The parent rock started hurtling towards Earth. Micro-diamonds and shattered parent rock were created by the heat of entry into the atmosphere and the pressure of impact in the Great Sand Sea.

The stone picked up in the desert is a fragment of the original impactor.

If the hypothesis is correct, the Hypatia stone would be the first tangible evidence of an Ia explosion. It shows that the dust from outer space could be incorporated into the solar system, without being fully mixed in.

This goes against the conventional view that the dust that formed our solar system was mixed.

A tiny sample has three million volts.

The researchers used several techniques to analyze the strange stone in order to piece together the timelines of how it may have formed.

The rock was not formed on the ground. It had to be something other than reality. A study of noble gases in the fragment indicated that it may not be from a meteorite or comet.

The UJ team discovered a mineral, nickel phosphide, not previously found in any object in our solar system.

It was proving difficult to analyze at that point. The trace metals they were looking for could not be seen in detail with the equipment they had. They needed a more powerful instrument that wouldn't destroy the sample.

Belyanin had created a dataset a few years before.

In 2015, Belyanin did a series of analyses on a beam at the iThemba Labs. Dr. Przybylowicz kept the machine running.

In search of a pattern.

We wanted to explore if there is an underlying unity rather than explore all the incredible anomalies. We wanted to see if there was a consistent chemical pattern in the stone.

Belyanin carefully selected 17 targets. After the impact in the desert, the earthly minerals formed in the cracks of the original rock.

We identified 15 elements with much greater precision and accuracy using the proton microprobe. Belyanin says that Jan could start analyzing the data after this gave them the chemical and ingredients they needed.

The solar system is also ruled out by the beam of the protons.

The low level of Silicon in the stone targets was the first new clue. It was less than 1% that something was formed within our inner solar system.

High iron, high sulfur, high phosphorus, high copper and high vanadium were anomalies.

We found a consistent pattern of trace element abundances that are completely different from anything in the solar system. There are objects in the asteroid belt that do not match this. Kramers says that they looked outside the solar system.

Not from our neighborhood.

The dust between stars in the solar arm of the Milky Way galaxy is expected to be similar to the concentration pattern of the hypatia element.

We looked to see if the pattern we get from average interstellar dust in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy matches what we see in hypatia. Again, there was no similarity.

At this point, the data from the protons had ruled out some of the suspected locations of the formation of hypatia.

It was not part of any known comet or meteorite, it was not from average inner solar system dust, and it was not from average interstellar dust either.

Not a giant.

A red giant star is the next simplest explanation for the element concentration pattern. There are red giant stars in the universe.

The mass outflow from a red giant star was ruled out by the data from the protons.

There is not a supernova type II.

There was a possibility of a supernova type II. A lot of iron is cooked up by type II supernovas. They're a relatively common type of supernova.

There was no evidence of a supernova type II in the data from the proton beam. There was too much iron in Hypatia.

The chemistry of one of the most dramatic explosions in the universe was to be closely examined.

A heavy metal factory.

A rare type of supernova makes a lot of iron. The type Ia only happens once or twice per century. Most of the iron is produced in the universe. The iron element was created by Ia supernovas.

Some Ia supernovas leave very distinctive chemistry clues behind. The way some Ia supernovas are set up is what makes this happen.

A red giant star at the end of its life collapses into a white dwarf star. White dwarf stars are usually stable for a long time. There are exceptions to this.

A white dwarf star could start pulling on another star. The white dwarf star eats up its companion star. The white dwarf explodes in a supernova when it gets heavy, hot and unstable.

The nuclear fusion during the Ia explosion is predicted to create unusual element concentration patterns.

The white dwarf star that explodes in a supernova is blown to atoms. The gas atoms are delivered into space.

The team couldn't find any similar or better chemical fit for the hypatia stone than a specific set of supernova Ia models.

The evidence is forensic.

The data and theoretical models show higher proportions of iron compared to other elements.

The data from the laboratory on Hypatia fit to models and data.

8 elements conform to the predicted ranges of proportions relative to iron. The elements are Silicon, sulfur, calcium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron and nickel.

Not all elements in the analysis fit the predictions. The proportions in six elements were between 10 and 100 times higher than what the models predicted. The elements are aluminum, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, copper and zinc.

Since a white dwarf star is formed from a dying red giant, the proportions of the six elements from a red giant star could have been passed on to Hypatia. This phenomenon has been observed in white dwarf stars.

The first tangible evidence of an Ia explosion on Earth would be the Hypatia stone.

The stone was found in a desert strewn with pebbles, which was a clue to a story that began during the early formation of our solar system.

More information: Jan D. Kramers et al, The chemistry of the extraterrestrial carbonaceous stone "Hypatia": A perspective on dust heterogeneity in interstellar space, Icarus (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115043 Journal information: Icarus Provided by University of Johannesburg Citation: Extraterrestrial stone brings first supernova clues to Earth (2022, May 16) retrieved 16 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-extraterrestrial-stone-supernova-clues-earth.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.