Exotic beta decay of thallium helps to determine the timescale of the Sun’s birth

2024/11/13

Using new data on the the bound-state beta decay of fully-ionised thallium (205Tl81+ ) ions at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of GSI/FAIR, an international collaboration of scientists has determined how much radioactive lead (205Pb) is produced in asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. By comparing with the amount of 205Pb present in the early Solar Sytem as inferred from meteorites, they determine an interval for the formation of the Sun from the progenitor molecular cloud of ten to twenty million years. The results have now been published in the journal Nature.

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