Origin of Recent Interstellar Fe-60 on Earth

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, evidence for a 2 Myr old supernova Fe-60 influx onto Earth was provided by several authors. For the first time, independent investigations of samples from two different geological archives yielded conclusive data for a further, much younger Fe-60 influx onto Earth. The origin of this influx is currently unclear because of the limited data available, the lack of consistent astrophysical models and a gap in the data between 50 kyr and 1 Myr. Possible astrophysical scenarios will be discussed with respect to the different influx patterns from different sources and a measurement to close the gap will be proposed. Show more