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 (New 卅繁消消, 11 September 1999, p 17).…
