All articles tagged with #chemical signatures
New research suggests that sponges are the earliest animals on Earth, based on chemical evidence from over 541 million years ago, supporting the idea that they resemble our original animal ancestors.
Astronomers discovered a new type of supernova, SN2021yfj, where a star was stripped down to its inner layers, revealing heavy elements like silicon, sulfur, and argon, challenging existing models of stellar death and suggesting more exotic pathways for star explosions.
Scientists using the ALMA observatory have discovered strong chemical evidence of a protoplanet in the protoplanetary disk around young star HD 169142. The detection of silicon monosulfide provides a new method for detecting and studying protoplanets, offering insights into protoplanetary chemistry. This discovery opens up new possibilities for detecting and characterizing protoplanets when direct observations or imaging are not possible, deepening our understanding of exoplanets and their development over time.
Astronomers have discovered the remnants of some of the universe's oldest stars, which are over 13 billion years old, by studying the chemical signatures of three distant clouds of star-forming gas using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The clouds were found to be poor in iron and other metallic elements but rich in carbon, oxygen, and magnesium, which is what would have been left over after the first stars ran out of fuel and exploded. This discovery may help explain the composition of younger stars, including those found in the Milky Way.