Could the Supernova Shock Wave That Created Our Solar System Still Be Detected?

[Ms Music]

After reading this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120802133653.htm I was wondering if the shock wave from the super nova could still be detected? If so, could we figure out what region the supernova came from?

 

[Naty1]

Hey Ms Music! [from one 'twit' to another:]

Can't answer for sure one way or another...but I can make a few guesses...[always fun!]

One issue would be trying to detect one supernova remnanent from another...how would we know which one if the 'one' being discussed? There will likely have been many, maybe even millions upon millions as there are far mor galaxies than that.

On the same page as your reference there is a similar story from 2008 in the right hand column. A quick skim suggests neither mentions detecting the shockwave...so my guess is that would be really difficult.

Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_remnant

discusses the supernova shockwave phenomena and the description lends credence to detection being really difficult. I'm not at all positive exactly what this means but it seems to support my wild guess that characteristics may disappear pretty quickly:

...Merging with the surrounding interstellar medium. When the supernova remnant slows to the speed of the random velocities in the surrounding medium, after roughly 30,000 years, it will merge into the general turbulent flow, contributing its remaining kinetic energy to the turbulence.

The list of known supernova remnanents suggests those we have found are visible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supernova_remnantsYou might make a mental comparison with the cosmic microwave background radiation...a form of remnanent from the big bang. We CAN still detect that from about 13.7 billions years ago...but why would that be different?

Wikipedia describes it this way:

According to the Big Bang model, the radiation from the sky we measure today comes from a spherical surface called the surface of last scattering. This represents the set of locations in space at which the decoupling event is estimated to have occurred and at a point in time such that the photons from that distance have just reached observers.

So that radiation is at the 'right distance' for us to receive weak signals, meaning it's receding really,really rapidly and in addition was maybe trillions of times more powerful.

I think our galaxy is about 13 billion years old...am unsure exactly what constitutes such a 'galaxy' being 'present and accounted for' [it could just be initial accumulations of stellar gas] and how long for some supernovas to have formed after stars started dying...That has actually been discussed in the forums I think, but I do not recall any approximations... I do recall someone knew of a 'fast process', a shortcut that could spawn them...anyone know tht discussion?

I wonder if supernova remnant radiation from what was then a 'nearby' supernova would have already passed us by besides having also dissipated?? seems quite possible. Surely the matter would be floating randomly by now...

Maybe a real cosmologist will chime in, like Wallace, and blow my ideas to smithereens! [Not so much 'fun', but usually instructive.]

 

[Naty1]

Oh where of where is a cosmologist when you need one?

 

[Chronos]

Supernovae shock waves are transient events. They can be triggered by the explosion itself, or by radiative heating of the interstellar medium, the shock wave itself travels at sublight speed [basically sonic], so there may be an appreciable delay between the supernovae event and arrival of the shock wave. It is, however, short lived in either case. The shock wave responsible for the solar system is long gone.

 

[Naty1]

Chronos:

Supernovae shock waves are transient events. ... The shock wave responsible for the solar system is long gone.

I tend to agree, but still can't prove it to myself.
I strongly suspect that a supernova close enough to effect our early galaxy would not be able to recede at a speed such that it's shock wave might still be somewhere around. But because it is so subluminal, who knows?? Anyway,since our galaxy is NOT undergoing cosmological expansion,
and hasn't been for billions of years, maybe that's a reasonable conceptual way to think about it.

good enough for now, thanks