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So, what is the best estimate of the speed of the particles in the blast wave?

1) The light, of course, at c 300,000/sec). But what is the speed of the particles?

2) If we now see 10-15 supernovas per century across all visible galaxies, why do they assume the early supernovas had a lifespan of less than 50,000 years? What has changed to cause so few now? Or are they assuming all the early supernova-sized source stars already burned out?

3) If supernova blasts like this one created all heavier matter nuclei in the universe (only Hydrogen and Helium coming the assumed Big Bang) where are the supernova remnants that created the 50x10^54 number of heavy nuclei collisions we find in the earth’s mass alone?

Would not you require some large fraction of that 10^54 number of stars present - since only a small fraction of each supernova is going to get blown away from the source star into exactly the right place at exactly the right time to be gathered into the proto-solar system’s dust cloud?