Supernova Bursts Indicate ‘Iron Bullets’ Source of Earth's Iron Core

A team of scientists has recently theorized that 'iron bullets' emitted by stars when they explode may be the source for earth's iron core.

For the study, researchers modelled supernovae and found that a particular type of star formed giant 'ears' after undergoing supernova explosion.

"Thermonuclear supernovae explosions appear to be uniform, and we can use that uniformity as measuring sticks to figure out the size of the universe," says Dr Brad Tucker of the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory, an author on one of the two papers reporting on the phenomena.

"However, we've kind of had this dirty little secret going on, in that we really don't know what the companion star is," says Tucker.

The supernovae were located between 600 million and 1.8 billion light-years away.

"We were able to capture the supernovae in the first minutes of the explosion, the earliest previously had been two and a half hours after the event," says Tucker.

The astronomers tracked the explosions in detail to full brightness around three weeks after ignition and their subsequent decline over the following months.

"We found the companion star in each event had to have a mass smaller than our Sun and that means it's most likely another white dwarf," says Tucker.