Stars birthed by the same cosmic cloud all have an unique makeup, astronomers say

Sep 1, 2014 20:03 GMT  ·  By
Researchers say it might be possible to find our Sun's siblings by analyzing the makeup of other stars
   Researchers say it might be possible to find our Sun's siblings by analyzing the makeup of other stars

Thanks to technology allowing scientists to map the chemical makeup of stars populating the universe, our Sun might soon be reunited with its long-lost brothers and sisters, astronomers argue in a paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature.

Thus, it is believed that, by pinning down the exact elements that got together to form one star or another, scientists might be able to figure out which fiery celestial bodies were birthed by the same cosmic cloud.

Specialist Mark Krumholz and colleagues claim that, as shown by a series of experiments carried out in laboratory conditions, hectic and surprisingly rapid gas movements explain why cosmic clouds birth stars that all have the same unique makeup.

Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers detail that, as part of their investigation, they simulated the formation of a cloud as a result of the interaction of two distinct streams of interstellar gas. They found that, when getting together, the streams did not take long to mix.

“We added tracer dyes to the two streams in the simulations, which let us watch how the gas mixed together during this process. We found that, as the streams came together, they became extremely turbulent, and the turbulence very effectively mixed together the tracer dyes.”

“I didn’t expect the turbulence to be as violent as it was, and so I didn’t expect the mixing to be as rapid or efficient. I thought we’d get some blue stars and some red stars, instead of getting all purple stars,” scientist Mark Krumholz with the University of California, Santa Cruz in the US said in a statement.

Interestingly enough, it appears that even clouds that fail to use up much of their material in order to form a great deal of stars still birth fiery celestial bodies that pack the same amounts of various elements. Simply put, they cough out stars that share a unique chemical profile.

As detailed in the journal Nature, this one-of-a-kind chemical profile can be determined by closely analyzing the wavelengths of light originating from various stars. This is because these wavelengths are influenced by how much hydrogen, helium, carbon, iron, oxygen, or more exotic compounds stars hold.

Mark Krumholz and fellow researchers say that, although stars that formed in the same cloud can part ways shortly after formation, evidence indicates that their makeup can help identify them as siblings. This information could eventually translate into the discovery of our Sun's relatives.

“We’ve provided the missing physical explanation of how and why chemical mixing works, and shown convincingly that the chemical mixing process is very general and rapid even in an environment which did not yield a star cluster, like the one where the Sun must have formed.”

The finding puts the idea of chemical tagging on much firmer footing. “This is good news for prospects for finding the Sun’s long-lost siblings,” University of California, Santa Cruz researcher Mark Krumholz commented on the outcome of his and his colleagues' investigation.