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posted by takyon on Thursday July 30 2015, @11:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the universal-charger dept.

The chemical element lithium has been found for the first time in material ejected by a nova. Observations of Nova Centauri 2013 made using telescopes at ESO's La Silla Observatory, and near Santiago in Chile, help to explain the mystery of why many young stars seem to have more of this chemical element than expected. This new finding fills in a long-missing piece in the puzzle representing our galaxy's chemical evolution, and is a big step forward for astronomers trying to understand the amounts of different chemical elements in stars in the Milky Way.

A team led by Luca Izzo (Sapienza University of Rome, and ICRANet, Pescara, Italy) has now used the FEROS instrument on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, as well the PUCHEROS spectrograph on the ESO 0.5-metre telescope at the Observatory of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santa Martina near Santiago, to study the nova Nova Centauri 2013 (V1369 Centauri). This star exploded in the southern skies close to the bright star Beta Centauri in December 2013 and was the brightest nova so far this century - easily visible to the naked eye.

The very detailed new data revealed the clear signature of lithium being expelled at two million kilometres per hour from the nova. This is the first detection of the element ejected from a nova system to date.

Co-author Massimo Della Valle (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, and ICRANet, Pescara, Italy) explains the significance of this finding: "It is a very important step forward. If we imagine the history of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way as a big jigsaw, then lithium from novae was one of the most important and puzzling missing pieces. In addition, any model of the Big Bang can be questioned until the lithium conundrum is understood."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:03PM (#215900)

    I waste a lot of time watching debates on Youtube between theists and rational empiricists, and then I click over to SN and rejoice.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:47PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:47PM (#215952)

    > a lot of time watching debates on Youtube between theists and rational empiricists

    You know that you can pay people to help you fulfill your masochist needs without wasting everyone's bandwidth and seemingly encouraging terrible public behavior, right?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @12:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @12:06PM (#216265)

      I'm wasting everyone's bandwidth? I'm encouraging terrible public behaviour?