WHAT may have been a key event in the formation of the solar system has been recreated in the lab, supporting the idea that Earth could owe its existence to a nearby gamma-ray burst.
Physicist Brian McBreen and his team from University College Dublin suggested in 1999 that intense radiation from a GRB could have melted the iron-rich dust grains around the young sun, fusing them into chondrules – the rocky beads that make up the bulk of stony meteorites. These chondrules would have quickly seeded the formation of planets, including our own (Â鶹´«Ã½, 11 September 1999, p 17).…
