A new study published in Nature Astronomy suggest that White dwarf stars are the main source of carbon atoms in the milky way, a crucial building block for all life.
While some stars explode into supernovas, the majority become White dwarfs. In fact, 90% of stars in the universe become these hot, dense stellar remains. Over billions of years, these stars cool and begin to shed their outer material. These ashes contain chemicals like carbon, a key building block for the formation of most cells.
Although, it is known that all carbon originates from stars, astronomers couldn’t agree which stars were responsible for omitting the highest quantity.
The study was carried out at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and compared the relationship between star’s mass when first formed compared to their mass as White dwarfs.
“Our study interprets this kink in the initial-final mass relationship as the signature of the synthesis of carbon made by low-mass stars in the Milky Way,” Said Paola Marigo, a researcher at the University of Padua in Italy who led the study.
“Now we know that the carbon came from stars with a birth mass of not less than roughly 1.5 solar masses.”
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