From Space.com: Origins Revealed: Sun and Earth Born amid Chaos

It looks more and more probable that the Solar System formed in a dense region of star birth. In that case one large obstacle for planetary formation and emerge of life has been removed since majority of stars form in such regions.

They talk about the presence of iron-60 in meteorites, but in the press release don't say which meteorites they checked. I have some iron meteorites, and now I'm curious...

Several recent observations have been leading up to this conclusion, like Sedna's weird orbit, the sharp truncation of the Kuiper Belt, and possibility Uranus and Neptune have been stripped of their hydrogen envelope. Not too long ago a read a paper that concluded the sun formed in a region slightly more "intense" than the Orion Nebula, but nothing like the Carina Nebula, and the sun formed next to one or two Wolf-Rayet stars, which are enormous beasts. I'm going to see if I can find it again.

Shouldn't there be some evidence of a past nebula of something? Seems strange that everything else would have float off somewhere else, that it wouldn't have stuck together somewhat even over 4.2 billion years.

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So what happened to them? Get old and blow up millions of years ago? I would think if they were that close and large, they would generally stick together.

From what I've read, the Sun is part of the Ursa Major Moving Group.

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T. Anderson

It is definitely not. Sun is inside the group, but does not belong to it. The Ursa Major Moving Group is only a billion or so years old. Except for Dubhe (Alpha UMa) and Alkaid (Eta UMa) all the Big Dipper star belong to it. Alphecca (aka Gemma, Alpha CrB) in Corona Borealis and Sirius were once part of it, but they have moved out from the group. Naturally many much dimmer stars also belong to the group.

Good article about the group.

Long gone. The nebula would only exist for a a few million years at most.

Long gone. They would only be around for a few million years before exploding.

Thanks for the clarification! 8)

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T. Anderson

Awesome if true. Stepping into the "overlap" of science & religion, I wonder if this would not produce blue "waters" (Rayleigh Scattering) if an eyewittness saw this one "day"? Just seems like a Genesis kinda moment.

Would this not augment the Earth's internal heat allowing for things such as plate tectonics to assist in life?

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