Supernovae showered Earth with radioactive debris

Science Daily ^ | 4/6/2016 | Australian National University

[JimSEA]

An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered Earth with radioactive debris.

The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The iron-60 was concentrated in a period between 3.2 and 1.7 million years ago, which is relatively recent in astronomical terms, said research leader Dr Anton Wallner from The Australian National University (ANU).

"We were very surprised that there was debris clearly spread across 1.5 million years," said Dr Wallner, a nuclear physicist in the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "It suggests there were a series of supernovae, one after another.

"It's an interesting coincidence that they correspond with when the Earth cooled and moved from the Pliocene into the Pleistocene period."

The team from Australia, the University of Vienna in Austria, Hebrew University in Israel, Shimizu Corporation and University of Tokyo, Nihon University and University of Tsukuba in Japan, Senckenberg Collections of Natural History Dresden and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany, also found evidence of iron-60 from an older supernova around eight million years ago, coinciding with global faunal changes in the late Miocene.

[JimSEA]

I had one of those way back when. It moved out right smartly and would go about 125 on the freeway, not that I ever did anything like that. ;-)

[Billthedrill]

You’re gonna want to trim the brush in the engine compartment back before you sell that one. A little primer, a new pine-tree deodorizer, you’re good to go.

[SunkenCiv]

Ooh, nice pic, too! Thanks JimSEA, extra to APoD.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks JimSEA -- nice three-list topic.

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

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[SunkenCiv]

The rest of the Iron-60 keyword:

• Supernova "Smoking Gun" Linked To Mass Extinctions [2002]
• How star blasts forged mankind [2002]
• Theory Proposes New View of Sun and Earth's Creation [2004]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day 05-23-04 [2004]
• Supernova debris found on Earth [2004]
• Violent Past: Young sun withstood a supernova blast [2013]

[Red Badger]

IOW, GALACTIC WARMING!..........................

[Red Badger]

Maybe that explains the sudden ‘explosion of life’ and the sudden mass extinctions........................

[Red Badger]

It’s a inline six, not a V8.....................Not very ‘super’.......................