The origin of short-lived radionuclides and the astrophysical environment of solar system formation

Abstract

Based on early solar system abundances of short-lived radionuclides (SRs), such as ${}^{26}$Al (T${}_{1/2}=0.74$ Myr) and ${}^{60}$Fe (T${}_{1/2}=1.5$ Myr), it is often asserted that the Sun was born in a large stellar cluster, where a massive star contaminated the protoplanetary disk with freshly nucleosynthesized isotopes from its supernova (SN) explosion. To account for the inferred initial solar system abundances of short-lived radionuclides, this supernova had to be close ($\sim$ 0.3 pc) to the young ($⩽$ 1 Myr) protoplanetary disk. Here we show that massive star evolution timescales are too long, compared to typical timescales of star formation in embedded clusters, for them to explode as supernovae within the lifetimes of nearby disks. This is especially true in an Orion Nebular Cluster (ONC)-type of setting, where the most massive star will explode as a supernova $\sim$ 5 Myr after the onset of star formation, when nearby disks will have already suffered substantial photoevaporation and/or formed large planetesimals. We quantify the probability for {\it any} protoplanetary disk to receive SRs from a nearby supernova at the level observed in the early solar system. Key constraints on our estimate are: (1) SRs have to be injected into a newly formed ($⩽$ 1 Myr) disk, (2) the disk has to survive UV photoevaporation, and (3) the protoplanetary disk must be situated in an enrichment zone permitting SR injection at the solar system level without disk disruption. The probability of protoplanetary disk contamination by a supernova ejecta is, in the most favorable case, 3 $\times$ 10${}^{-3}$.

References in corpus (16)

• Radioactive 26Al and massive stars in the Galaxy
• Early Evolution of Stellar Groups and Clusters: Environmental Effects on Forming Planetary Systems
• Short-lived Nuclei in the Early Solar System: Possible AGB Sources
• Massive-Star Supernovae as Major Dust Factories
• A Census of the Carina Nebula. I: Cumulative Energy Input from Massive Stars
• A Spitzer census of the IC 348 nebula
• SPI observations of the diffuse 60Fe emission in the Galaxy
• The Irradiation Origin of Beryllium Radioisotopes and Other Short-lived Radionuclides
• Interaction of Supernova Ejecta with Nearby Protoplanetary Disks
• SPITZER/IRAC-MIPS Survey of NGC2244: Protostellar Disk Survival in the Vicinity of Hot Stars
• Dust yields in clumpy SN shells: SN 1987A revisited
• A Census of the Carina Nebula -- II. Energy Budget and Global Properties of the Nebulosity
• Radioactive Probes of the Supernova-Contaminated Solar Nebula: Evidence that the Sun was Born in a Cluster
• Spectacular Spitzer images of the Trifid Nebula: Protostars in a young, massive-star-forming region
• On the likelihood of supernova enrichment of protoplanetary disks
• Cool Stars in Hot Places

Cited by in corpus (39)

• Our astrochemical heritage
• The Birth Environment of the Solar System
• The Long-term Evolution of the Galactic Disk Traced by Dissolving Star Clusters
• Solar system genealogy revealed by extinct short-lived radionuclides in meteorites
• Radioactive nuclei from cosmochronology to habitability
• Al-26 and the formation of the Solar System from a molecular cloud contaminated by Wolf-Rayet winds
• Origin of Earth's water: sources and constraints
• Characterizing Exoplanet Habitability
• Solar System Formation in the Context of Extra-Solar Planets
• Reassessing the formation of the inner Oort cloud in an embedded star cluster
• Heterogeneous distribution of Al-26 at the birth of the Solar System
• Tidally induced brown dwarf and planet formation in circumstellar discs
• A Critical Examination of the X-Wind Model for Chondrule and Calcium-rich, Aluminum-rich Inclusion Formation and Radionuclide Production
• Solar neutrinos, helioseismology and the solar internal dynamics
• The Supernova Triggered Formation and Enrichment of Our Solar System
• Simultaneous Triggered Collapse of the Presolar Dense Cloud Core and Injection of Short-Lived Radioisotopes by a Supernova Shock Wave
• Supernova Propagation And Cloud Enrichment: A new model for the origin of ${}^{60}$Fe in the early solar system
• Isotopic enrichment of forming planetary systems from supernova pollution
• Supernova enrichment and dynamical histories of solar-type stars in clusters
• A runaway Wolf-Rayet star as the origin of 26-Al in the early solar system
• Mixing of Clumpy Supernova Ejecta into Molecular Clouds
• Short-lived radioactivity in the early Solar System: the Super-AGB star hypothesis
• The Role of Massive Agb Stars in the Early Solar System Composition
• New Paradigms For Asteroid Formation
• Spitzer Observations of the HII Region NGC 2467: An Analysis of Triggered Star Formation
• Astronomical Oxygen Isotopic Evidence for Supernova Enrichment of the Solar System Birth Environment by Propagating Star Formation
• Distributions of Short-Lived Radioactive Nuclei Produced by Young Embedded Stellar Clusters
• A Solar System formation analogue in the Ophiuchus star-forming complex
• Assessing the Formation of Solid Hydrogen Objects in Starless Molecular Cloud Cores
• Chemical enrichment of the pre-solar cloud by supernova dust grains
• Did the Solar System form in a sequential triggered star formation event?
• Observational constraints on the likelihood of ${}^{26}$Al in planet-forming environments
• The Astrophysical Environment of the Solar Birthplace
• Very massive star winds as sources of the short-lived radioactive isotope ${}^{26}$Al
• Starbursts and High-Redshift Galaxies are Radioactive: High Abundances of ${}^{26}$Al and Other Short Lived Radionuclides
• Distributions of Long-Lived Radioactive Nuclei Provided by Star Forming Environments
• Hypothesis about Enrichment of Solar System
• Telescopes versus Microscopes: the puzzle of Iron-60
• Measuring Cosmic Elements with Gamma-Ray Telescopes