Overview
- A study in Physical Review Letters reports iron‑60 in Antarctic ice, an isotope forged in supernova explosions.
- The team led by Dominik Koll at HZDR analyzed about 300 kilograms of EPICA cores to build a dated record.
- Layers from 40,000 to 81,000 years ago held less iron‑60 than snow from recent decades.
- Measured levels exceeded what cosmic‑ray reactions in Earth’s atmosphere would produce.
- The pattern indicates the Solar System has traveled through a supernova‑enriched Local Interstellar Cloud for at least 80,000 years.