Astronomers report iron-60 traces in Antarctic ice dated 40,000 to 80,000 years old, linking a past nearby supernova to the Local Interstellar Cloud that Earth is currently moving through.

Iron-60, a radioactive isotope produced in massive stars and released by supernovae, points to a relatively nearby stellar event associated with the Local Interstellar Cloud, rather than older, distant sources.

The discovery shows Antarctic ice preserving interstellar debris from a stellar explosion, providing evidence of the Solar System’s traversal through the Local Interstellar Cloud.

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The study is presented as a Research Highlight with a Nature publication, underscoring its scientific significance and peer-reviewed basis.

The findings offer a new approach to studying the origin and structure of the clouds around the Solar System and their link to past supernova events.

The work, led by researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and colleagues, appears in Physical Review Letters and involved samples from the Alfred Wegener Institute and EPICA project.

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Measurements were performed at Dresden DREAMS and the Australian National University’s Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility, where only a few iron-60 atoms remained from an initial trillions, highlighting the experiment’s extreme sensitivity.

Future work may analyze older ice to better understand the cloud’s history and origins using similar isotope methods to expand data on interstellar dust deposition.

The finding uses iron-60 as a rare isotope indicator, suggesting a historical passage of Earth through interstellar dust tied to the Local Interstellar Cloud.

While not conclusively settling the cloud’s origin, the results show Antarctic ice can record interstellar events and help map the Solar System’s journey through the Local Interstellar Cloud.