The culprit that caused the extinction of dinosaurs on Earth
A new study has found that our Sun was born alongside a star called Nemesis, and some astronomers believe this star was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Did the Sun's twin star Nemesis cause the dinosaurs to become extinct? |
Scientists have long sought to explain the phenomenon of stars having companions. A new analysis by scientists from Harvard University and UC Berkeley suggests that nearly all stars are born with a companion star.
The Sun's twin star, called Nemesis, orbited the Sun before it passed out into the galaxy. It has never been found, but new research suggests it must have existed because all stars are born in pairs.
Scientists believe that the Sun's twin star Nemesis was the cause of the giant meteor changing direction, crashing into Earth and causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Researchers came to their conclusion after observing newborn stars in the constellation Perseus. They designed a mathematical model and found that the hypothesis that every star has a twin version was exactly correct for the stars in the constellation Perseus.
"We ran a series of statistical models to see if we could explain the number of young, single stars in Perseus. Only one model fit the data: all the stars initially formed in wide binary systems that collapsed or split apart within a million years," said Steven Stahler, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the research team.
Meanwhile, Sarah Sadavoy, one of the researchers at the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory, said: "The idea that many stars form with a companion has been proposed before, but the question is: How many such star systems are there?"
“Based on our simple model, almost all stars form with one copy. The Perseus constellation is considered a typical low-mass star-forming region, but we need to check other constellations,” said Sadavoy.
The Perseus Molecular Cloud is one of these stellar nurseries, located about 600 light-years from Earth and spanning about 50 light-years across.
According to Baotintuc
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