Tree rings may hold clues to impacts of distant supernovas on Earth

Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet's biology and geology, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder geoscientist Robert Brakenridge.

The study, published this month in the International Journal of Astrobiology, probes the impacts of supernovas, some of the most violent events in the known universe. In the span of just a few months, a single one of these eruptions can release as much energy as the sun will during its entire lifetime. They're also bright—really bright.

To study those possible impacts, Brakenridge searched through the planet's tree ring records for the fingerprints of these distant, cosmic explosions. His findings suggest that relatively close supernovas could theoretically have triggered at least four disruptions to Earth's climate over the last 40,000 years.

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Credit: NASA/ESA/HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team

The remnants of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that sits close to the Milky Way.

Source / Image Courtesy

Stunning Supernova Remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and hosts the remnant of a Type Ia supernova explosion, named N103B.

The Hubble Space Telescope imagery was used to create this zoom-in video of the remnant.

The Red Bubble: Supernova Remnant SNR 0509-67.5

This movie presents a visualization of the supernova remnant known as SNR 0509-67.5. The delicate sphere of gas, photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova.

The bubble is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth.

Ripples in the shell's surface may be caused by either subtle variations in the density of the ambient interstellar gas, or possibly driven from the interior by pieces of the ejecta.

The bubble-shaped shroud of gas is 23 light-years across and is expanding at more than 11 million miles per hour (5,000 kilometers per second).

The unique three-dimensional view of the visualization reminds us that the objects in Hubble images are not all at the same distance, but rather spread across light-years of space.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, T. Borders, L. Frattare, Z. Levay, and F. Summers (STScI)