Artist's Illustration of a Nova (IMAGE)

University of Arizona

Artist's Illustration of a Nova

Caption

Billions of years ago, before our solar system was born, a dead star known as a white dwarf in a nearby binary star system accumulated enough material from its companion to cause it to 'go nova.' The stellar explosion forged dust grains with exotic compositions not found in our solar system. A team of researchers led by the UA found such a grain (inset image), encased in a meteorite, that survived the formation of our solar system and analyzed it with instruments sensitive enough to ID single atoms in a sample. Measuring one 25,000th of an inch, the carbon-rich graphite grain (red) revealed an embedded speck of oxygen-rich material (blue), two types of stardust that were thought could not form in the same nova eruption.

Credit

University of Arizona/Heather Roper

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