The Strange Case of the Iron SunIn the late 1960s, chemist Oliver Manuel made a small but staggering discovery about meteorites. He noticed that the abundances of certain elements in meteorites were distinctly different from those in the Earth and much of the solar system. This observation spurred research showing that our solar system probably formed from material generated in many different stars. For Manuel, it also spawned a radical theory about the origins of our solar system, which he has doggedly pursued for forty years. Nearly all astronomers agree that the Sun and the rest of the planets formed from an amorphous cloud of gas and dust 4.6 billion years ago. But Manuel argues, based on his compositional data, that the solar system was created by a dramatic stellar explosion--a supernova--and that the iron-encased remnant of the progenitor star still sits at the center of the Sun.
by Solana Pyne
Solar Abundance of the ElementsAbstract. When photospheric abundances are corrected for the mass fractionation seen across the isotopes of solar wind implanted noble gases, the most abundant elements in the bulk Sun are the same ones Harkins found in 1917 to comprise 99% of ordinary meteorites: Fe, Ni, O, Si, S, Mg and Ca. The nuclei of these elements are products of advanced stellar evolution. Nuclear systematics suggest the possibility of a short-range n-n repulsion (10-22 MeV/nucleon) that might generate part of its luminosity if the Sun formed on the collapsed core of a supernova. The remainder may then come from fusion of H generated by neutron decay.
O. Manuel, C. Bolon and A. Katragada
Nuclear Chemistry, University of Missouri
Heh...
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: Astronomer And Astrophysicist
1900-1980
by Owen Gingerich
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/payne2.html
In a short chapter entitled “The Relative Abundance of the Elements” there is a ticking time bomb. This is the extremely high abundance of hydrogen and helium that had come out under certain assumptions in the analysis. Although we know today that this high abundance is real, at the time it produced an apparent anomaly with respect to the assumed homogeneity of the solar system. After all, when the earth is taken as a whole, it must be predominately iron in order to account for its high mean density, and this is supported by the fact that meteorites are largely iron and by the appearance of the solar spectrum itself, which shows more lines of iron than any other element. The very important principle of uniformity of nature seemed at stake. As Cecilia herself argued in her thesis, “If . . . the earth originated from the surface layers of the sun, the percentage composition of the whole earth should resemble the composition of the solar (and therefore of a typical stellar) atmosphere. . . . Considering the possibility of atomic segregation both in the earth and in the star, it appears likely that the earth’s crust is representative of the stellar atmosphere.”21 So in her final table of abundances, she omitted hydrogen and helium.
IOW, the model is upheld, despite contradiction by the data. :')The Neon Sun: New Study Appears to Solve MysteryThe Sun likely contains nearly three times more neon than previously thought, according to a new study. The finding, if shown to be accurate, solves a theoretical problem regarding how stars in general work... The model was put into question, however, when their value for the neon abundance in the Sun differed from those calculated using other techniques... Drake said the disagreement about the concentration of neon may have been due to problems with both the solar wind technique and the X-ray method... Drake and his colleague Paola Testa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology got around these problems by measuring the neon abundance of 21 nearby Sun-like stars using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory... nearby stars contained three times more neon than was calculated for the Sun... Drake said the same technique could be used on our own Sun, if not for one problem: the detectors on Chandra's instruments would fry because of the heat.
by Ker Than
27 July 2005
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A BTTM, and a thanks to RazzPutin for this link:
The Iron Sun Debate (1)
Nuclear Reactions at the Solar Surface
Jan 20, 2006
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/00current.htm
bump, related:
Is the Universe older than expected?
ESA | 11 Jul 02 | staff
Posted on 07/11/2002 12:09:03 PM EDT by RightWhale
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/714494/posts
:')
Creating Elements after BB: Where did the Supernova's Go?(Vanity)
NA | 2007/02/15 | Robert A. Cook
Posted on 02/15/2007 8:11:32 PM EST by Robert A. Cook, PE
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1785665/posts