clipped from: space.newscientist.com Our solar system came into existence with a nudge, rather than a bang, according to a meteorite analysis that rules out a popular theory for the formation of our planetary system.
Most astrophysicists believe that the solar system formed from a cloud of gas and dust when a nearby supernova exploded, compressing the dust and triggering the birth of the Sun and planets, says Martin Bizzarro of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
To investigate, Bizzarro and his colleagues looked for iron-60, an isotope produced by supernovae, in meteorites that formed during the first million years in the solar system's history. "To our great surprise, there was no iron-60, ruling out the supernova trigger mechanism," says Bizzarro.