Supernova create radioactive titanium

The most powerful planetary explosions in the universe can throw into the environment of radioactive titanium much more than previously thought: almost 100 times the mass of Earth, according to a new study.

These new findings promise to shed light on the mysterious inner processes in supernovae, and how are the elements that make up everything in our universe from planets to people.

The most powerful stellar explosions called supernovae in the universe, and during the explosions in stars processes run fusion, resulting in the formation of heavy elements.

For its new study, the researchers used the remnants of the supernova SN 1987A, broke out in 1987 on the edge of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy, located at a distance of 168,000 light years from Earth.

SN 1987A is a type II supernova - outbreaks of this type occur when the star ends its stellar fuel, and it starts to collapse, turning eventually into a neutron star or a black hole.

With the INTEGRAL satellite telescope of the European Space Agency, the researchers found that the mass created in the depths of this supernova titanium-44 the mass of the Earth is about 100 times, according to Sergei Grebeneva, an astrophysicist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

These findings may help build better models of supernovae, explaining how the universe is a synthesis of heavy elements.