Week in Geek - Explosions in the Sky
My weekly post for The Rachel Maddow Show.
Week in Geek: Explosion in the sky edition
New research by two separate teams of astronomers indicates that nearby supernovae left their chemical fingerprints on Earth within the last 10 million years.
Only the most massive stars go out with a bang, but when they do, they generate enough energy to create some of the heaviest chemical elements. One of these elements is iron, and more specifically iron-60: an unstable isotope of iron with a half-life of roughly 2.6 million years. It’s this kind of iron that astronomers have found in trace amounts in sediments from the ocean floor.
Also features: slo-motion cats, dead whales, Siberian unicorns, and trypophobia.
Read the full article here.
