Sand Comes From The Stars

scisteem (65)in #science • 5 years ago

It’s no secret that we are made from stardust. Most atoms in our bodies have been created during the explosions of ancient supernovae. And the same can be said about the rest of our world.

Whenever you look around you there is a good chance you will see something made from silicon dioxide. Silicon dioxide is the key part of several rocks and minerals and our civilization really likes to use it. It’s used in concrete, glass and electronics.

When we look at everything in our planet’s crust about 60 % of it is made from silica (a form of silicon dioxide). And silica dust can be found even out there in space. It can even be found on meteorites that are older than our solar system. Astronomers think one possible source of the space silica dust may be AGB stars (Asymptotic Giant Branch). But there are even other possibilities.

Chemical elements and molecules radiate specific radiation. And they can use these to find what we see in space. It’s sort of like space fingerprints. But sometimes things can affect the radiation in ways our models don’t account for. And that is what happened recently. Scientists found radiation in remains of ancient supernovae that is very close to what models tell us about radiation produced by silicone dioxide but it’s slightly off.

But they also think they know why. They think it’s the shape of the tiny silica grains. The models so far thought that the grains would have an ideally circular shape. But when they changed the shape in the models to a shape similar to an American Football ball they got exactly the results they were looking for.

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