The Rock From Space That Came From A Supernova
In 1996, a space stone was discovered in Egypt’s Great Sand Sea in southern Egypt. Scientists investigating the rock’s composition believe it originated from an explosion caused by a supernova, the dazzling, catastrophic demise of a sun.
Hypatia, a 4th-century Egyptian scholar, inspired the naming of the rock. A group of experts believes that Hypatia originated from outside our celestial vicinity and formed from the gas & dusty trash that accompanied a distant star’s destruction, judging by the arrangement of 15 elements inside a 3-gram sampling of the rock.
Such supernovae happen when white dwarfs (the tiny, dense remains of stars) devour so much matter (typically from another surrounding star) that they burst. This is how the scientists believe that Hypatia was formed. When the star’s core collapses, resulting in a supernova explosion, it’s known as a Type Ia supernova.
Apparently, billions of years ago, a hard rock developed all-around early phases of our planetary system when gas atoms from such a supernova explosion mixed with debris from the outburst site. Hypatia’s parent rock fragmented upon contact with Earth, resulting in the piece being discovered in 1996.
Proton microprobes were used to examine Hypatia’s elemental composition. Scientists analyzed the rock and discovered that the components present in it didn’t even imply that it came from space material in our Milky Way region.
For a supernova with Type Ia origins, there were 6 elements that proved much more abundant than predicted by the models: aluminum phosphorus chlorine potassium zinc as well as copper. Hypatia, according to experts, may have received these elements from a red giant star that existed before the white dwarf which subsequently burst into flames.
There is still a lot of work to be done to test the experts’ hypotheses concerning the beginnings of Hypatia.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.
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