Near-Earth supernova activity during the past 35 Myr

Understand

Here we combine observations of open clusters (OCs) with single- and binary population synthesis models and a Galactic potential to reconstruct the SN activity of these OCs during the past 35 Myr.

• We find that several OCs potentially hosting SN progenitors have passed within 100 pc of the Sun during the past 35 Myr.
• In particular we find that ASCC 19, NGC 1981, and NGC 1976 are likely to have hosted one or more SNe while passing within 200 pc of the solar system in the period 17 - 12 Myr BP which might have affected Earths' geology and climate.
• Besides the stellar history of the individual OCs we also compute 1) a spatial and temporal 2D-probability density map showing the most likely position and time of SN from our sample of OCs within 1 kpc during the past 35 Myr, 2) the time series of the SN rate per volume and 3) the relative SN rate compared with today and corrected for OC evaporation of older generations.