From Spaceref, this is an interesting press release, evidence is presented that the solar system formed in very close proximity to a massive star that exploded as a supernova, which would mean the sun was born in a dense star cluster, as massive stars are unlikely to form elsewhere and don't wander too far before exploding. The speculation has been building to this conclusion for a while now.

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I would rather understand one cause than be King of Persia. -Democritus of Abdera

This isn't an especially new idea, but I'm glad that they are continuing to look for details in this history. It will be interesting to look for the siblings. Other stars roughly co-moving with us in our orbit of the Milky Way, all with ages between say 4.8 and 4.4 billion years. I give this spread in age not really knowing the duration of a star-forming region either now, or 5 billion years ago during the long height of star formation in the Milky Way.

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Forming opinions as we speak

This is interesting. I've seen a number of articles suggesting that massive stars(supernovae progenitors) are far more frequently formed from large dust & gas regions of relatively low density...such as the periphery of the galactic arms, and halo....and that dense regions cause multiple smaller stars to form, red dwarfs, G, K's... Evidently the thinking has changed here? If so, the greatest majority of supernova remnants should be found towards, and in the galactic bulge. I'm not sure that's correct. Hmmm. Pete.

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

This is even on our website's front page, and I had to hear about it here. That's a cool thing, though. I wish John would have told me what he was working on.

Hum,

Planets Prefer Safe Neighbourhoods

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...