Egypt hid a treasure of incalculable value. The unique stone shocked the scientist

The year was 1996, when a discovery took place in Egypt so significant that it surpassed some of the finds at excavations dealing with the remains of ancient civilization, which are typical of the country. At that time, Aly A. Barakat found a strange dark stone in the desert, the surface of which was a bit like glass. But scientists soon began to speculate that the stone, named Hypatia, was of cosmic origin. This has now been confirmed by many years of research, the results of which have been published in a professional journal Icarus.

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If the conclusions of the research are correct, the stone is completely unique. “A new forensic analysis suggests that the Hypatia rock could be the first tangible evidence of a type Ia supernova explosion found on Earth,” he warns. press release of the University of Johannesburgwhere some of the authors of the study work.

The term supernova refers to several types of stellar explosions. Type Ia indicates a situation where the largest amount of energy is released. The explosion simply means that the rest of the star (white dwarf), which is no longer undergoing thermonuclear fusion and which would gradually fade for millions of years, begins to suck material from another nearby star. When the white dwarf reaches the so-called Chandrasekhar limit – that is, it takes so much material from a nearby star that it reaches about 1.44 times the mass of the Sun – a thermonuclear reaction ignites again, resulting in a giant explosion in which the star shines bright for a short time. .

A journey lasting billions of years

According to an analysis by scientists Jan Kramers, Georg Belyanin and Hartmut Winkler of the University of Johannesburg, the Hypatia Stone is a billion-year-old remnant of just such a massive explosion. After the supernova explosion, a mixture of particles – dust and gas – spread into space. “In billions of years, this mixture has turned into a solid. Eventually, the parent body from which Hypatia comes from was formed. It was about the time when the solar system was created, “the scientists say according to the server Science Alert.

Some important meteorites:

The chemical composition of the stone shows such a scenario. “It has unusually low levels of silicon, chromium and manganese, indicating that the rock did not form in the solar system. On the contrary, high values ​​of iron, sulfur, phosphorus, copper and vanadium were recorded, which makes the object different from anything in our close space neighborhood, “explains the Science Alert server.

At one point, the parent body from which the Hypatia stone originated began to approach Earth. “The heat to which the body was exposed as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere, together with the pressure on the Sahara’s Great Sandy Sea, crushed the parent rock. The Hypatia stone, which was found in the desert, must be one of many fragments of the original body, “says a press release from the University of Johannesburg.

Research continues

Although new research has revealed more than expected from the history of the Hypatia stone, there are still many questions about the space object. “Of the fifteen components of the stone analyzed, a few do not match what would be expected if the body is really a remnant of a white dwarf explosion,” notes the Science Alert server.

According to scientists, the discrepancy may be explained by further research into the supernova’s past – because an explosion can form bodies with a very unusual composition. “Because the white dwarf is the remnant of a dying red giant (a shining star that is in the late stages of its stellar evolution), the Hypatia stone may have inherited the values ​​of some elements from this red giant. This phenomenon has been documented in other researches focusing on white dwarfs, “said co-author Kramers.

That this explanation is correct, but it is not certain, and part of the secret, the stone Hypatia still keeps to itself.

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