Coatlicue (star)

Coatlicue is the name given to a hypothetical star which gave rise to the Sun and then exploded as a supernova. Coatlicue would have been at least thirty times the mass of the Sun, and while on the main sequence its strong winds would have compressed the gas of the local nebula and given birth to hundreds of stars, including the Sun. The existence and the characteristics of this star were deduced from the presence of aluminium-26 in meteorites, which was expelled in the winds of the massive star.

Name

Cōātlīcue is the mother of the Sun in the Aztecs' cosmogony.

This name is unofficial; it was proposed by Matthieu Gounelle and Georges Meynet, the authors of an article in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Further reading

• Banerjee, Projjwal; Qian, Yong-Zhong; Heger, Alexander; Haxton, W. C. (2016). "Evidence from stable isotopes and 10Be for solar system formation triggered by a low-mass supernova". Nature Communications. 7: 13639. arXiv:1611.07162. Bibcode:2016NatCo...713639B. doi:10.1038/ncomms13639. PMC 5121422. PMID 27873999.
• Boss, Alan P.; Keiser, Sandra A. (2010). "Who Pulled the Trigger: A Supernova or an Asymptotic Giant Branch Star?". The Astrophysical Journal. 717 (1): L1–L5. arXiv:1005.3981. Bibcode:2010ApJ...717L...1B. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/717/1/L1. S2CID 119206934.
• Cameron, A.G.W.; Truran, J.W. (1977). "The supernova trigger for formation of the solar system". Icarus. 30 (3): 447–461. Bibcode:1977Icar...30..447C. doi:10.1016/0019-1035(77)90101-4.
• Takigawa, A.; Miki, J.; Tachibana, S.; Huss, G. R.; Tominaga, N.; Umeda, H.; Nomoto, K. (2008). "Injection of Short‐Lived Radionuclides into the Early Solar System from a Faint Supernova with Mixing Fallback". The Astrophysical Journal. 688 (2): 1382–1387. arXiv:0808.1441. Bibcode:2008ApJ...688.1382T. doi:10.1086/592184. S2CID 7099146.