Related papers: The Early Solar System - Chapter 6
There is growing evidence that the Sun might have formed within a nebula impacted by at least one SNR. In this scenario, ejecta and shocks from SNRs may have provided the elements on which life as we know it is based. Investigating the…
Experimental work with solar neutrinos has illuminated the properties of neutrinos and tested models of how the sun produces its energy. Three experiments continue to take data, and at least seven are in various stages of planning or…
The evolution of the Solar System can be schematically divided into three different phases: the Solar Nebula, the Primordial Solar System and the Modern Solar System. These three periods were characterized by very different conditions, both…
I discuss the possibility that the large-scale segregation of metals that accompanied planet formation might have left an imprint on the composition of the primordial Sun. Motivated in part by recent Borexino measurements of CN solar…
Establishing the origin of short-lived radionuclides (SLRs) with half-lives $\leq$ 100 Myr has important implications for the astrophysical context of our Sun's birth place. We review here the different origins proposed for the variety of…
Radionuclides with half-lives ranging from some years to billions of years presumably synthesized outside of the solar system are now recorded in `live' or `fossil' form in various types of materials, like meteorites or the galactic cosmic…
Our Solar System includes the Sun, eight major planets and their moons, along with numerous asteroids, comets, and dust particles, collectively known as the small Solar System bodies. Small bodies are relics from the birth of the Solar…
The presence of excesses of short-lived radionuclides in the early solar system evidenced in meteorites has been taken as testament to close encounters with exotic nucleosynthetic sources, including supernovae or AGB stars. An analysis of…
Our Sun, like all stars, formed within a cold molecular cloud. Astronomical observations and theory provide considerable detail into this process. Yet cosmochemical observations of short lived radionuclides in primitive meteorites, in…
The solar nebula contained a number of short-lived radionuclides (SLRs) with half-lives of tens of Myr or less, comparable to the timescales for formation of protostars and protoplanetary disks. Therefore, determining the origins of SLRs…
This paper reviews our current understanding of the possible birth environments of our Solar System. Since most stars form within groups and clusters, the question becomes one of determining the nature of the birth aggregate of the Sun.…
Energy in stars is provided by nuclear reactions, which, in many cases, produce radioactive nuclei. When stable nuclei are irradiated by a flux of protons or neutrons, capture reactions push stable matter out of stability into the regime of…
The solar system was most likely born in a star cluster containing at least 1000 stars. It is highly probable that this cluster environment influenced various properties of the solar system like its chemical composition, size and the…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
We discuss some open problems in the understanding of the Early Solar System abundances of short-lived radioactive isotopes, and the important clarification expected on this matter by precise measurements of the average galactic abundances…
The ongoing discussion about the atomic chemical composition of the Sun is commented on. The main focus in this review is on the deviation of the solar composition from that of most other solar-type stars in that its ratio of volatiles…
Metal-poor stars were formed during the early epochs when only massive stars had time to evolve and contribute to the chemical enrichment. Low-mass metal-poor stars survive until the present and provide fossil records of the nucleosynthesis…
Properties of atomic nuclei important for the prediction of astrophysical reaction rates are reviewed. In the first part, a recent simulation of evolution and nucleosynthesis of stars between 15 and 25 solar masses is presented. This study…
We propose to advance investigations of electromagnetic radiation originating in atomic nuclei beyond its current infancy to a true astronomy. This nuclear emission is independent from conditions of gas, thus complements more traditional…
As the powerhouse of our solar system, the Sun's electromagnetic planetary influences appear contradictory. On the one hand, the Sun for aeons emitted radiation which was "just right" for life to evolve in our terrestrial Goldilocks zone,…