Had you been alive at the dawn of the solar system, the night sky would have been bright enough to read by. A thousand or so stars formed within a few light-years from the same interstellar cloud the sun did.
Image: Ron Miller
In Brief
- The sun is a solitary star, and astronomers have traditionally assumed it formed as such. Yet most stars are born in clusters, and scraps of evidence from meteorites and from the arrangement of comets suggest that our sun was no exception.
- Its birth cluster could have contained 1,500 to 3,500 stars within a diameter of 10 light-years—a big, unhappy family whose larger members bullied the small fry and which broke up not long after our solar system came into being.
- Although the sun’s siblings have long since dispersed across the galaxy, observatories such as the European GAIA satellite will be able to look for them. Their properties might fill in the gaps of the solar system’s deep history.
People have often sought solitude in the starry night sky, and it is an appropriate place for that. The night is dark because, in cosmic terms, our sun and its family of planets are very lonely. Neighboring stars are so far away that they look like mere specks of light, and more distant stars blur together into a feeble glow. Our fastest space probes will take tens of thousands of years to cross the distance to the nearest star. Space isolates us like an ocean around a tiny island.
Yet not all stars are so secluded. About one in 10 belongs to a cluster, a swarm of hundreds to tens of thousands of stars with a diameter of a few light-years. In fact, most stars are born in such groups, which generally disperse over billions of years, their stars blending in with the rest of the galaxy. What about our sun? Might it, too, have come into existence in a star cluster? If so, our location in the galaxy was not always so desolate. It only became so as the cluster dispersed in due time.
This article was originally published with the title The Long-Lost Siblings of the Sun.
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16 Comments
Add Comment"our sun and its family of planets are very lonely"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA little anthropomorphizing goes a long way.
This is too much.
This term works here because it is speaking of light bearing sources in the nearby area to light up the planets. There is not one for nearly 5 light years, so that could be considered lonely when considering that we are talking about something as small as a planetary system compared to those distances.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is so interesting indeed. Why there aren't stars close enough to make the night sky lit up? Thanks to God there are not. Everything seems so perfectly made for us to live. Why in a broader sense, are we so lonely? I haven't finished reading the article. But it is quite interesting. Where did the water from the oceans come from? Excuse me I jump from one idea to another that seems unrelated but there are so many things so amazing! Can we really trace the history of our solar system from that early, early times to the present day? We still ignore a lot of thing. I think one day we will be able to reach the stars faster than it seems possible. Will we be able to find life in outer space? Where does God fit in all this? Many questions indeed!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the pool of water from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy remarked, it is so wonderful that all holes in the ground have exactly the correct shape to hold exactly that amount of water. That surely confirms that the god of small water holes made them specifically to hold water....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you can't see the mistake in this argument, you are probably reading the wrong website.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlain-2009's questions are perfectly valid for this forum. I too think that it may be possible for us to reach the stars faster then we can dream of today. Will we find life? If we do or do not how will this fit in with our concepts and relationship to God?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile any question might be valid somewhere, Scientific American is aimed at a readership with a reasonable background in science. And this particular "forum" is an invitation to discuss the article above regarding the environment of the early stellar evolution. Asking where the water in the oceans come from is at least a scientific question. Expressing amazement is fine and could even be inspirational to some. The question about why we feel so lonely may be an interesting question, but is probably better dealt with in a psychology forum, or perhaps a theological one since the implication of "in the broader sense" is that the writer er is thinking about ultimate reasons. Clearly Plain-2009 means no harm but has at best a rudimentary scientific background. That doesn't stop him/her from asserting without any expressed cause a conclusion that we will be able to reach the stars "faster than it seems possible". OK, fine, but consider the source of that assertion. Will we be able to find life in outer space? Interesting question and one that scientists (including the amateurs among us) are very much interested in. Where does God fit in all this is not a scientific question, but rather a theological one, and probably not very valid for a forum discussing the early stellar environment. I disagree that this question is "perfectly valid for this forum." Finally, expressing the wonderment that everything seems so perfectly made for us, as Dimitris was trying to point out, shows a complete ignorance of the anthropological argument, which again, shows Plain-2009 to lack a reasonable scientific background. Dimitris was simply pointing out that if one not only hadn't been exposed to these issues but further couldn't see the problem expressed in an even simpler metaphorical context, that they were simply way out of their realm of expertise in this forum. What's valid for this forum is, of course, a matter of opinion. But scientists understand pretty clearly what kinds of questions are scientific questions. When scientists ask "why" we know we are really asking about "what is the mechanism." As much as we have discovered about the universe, science doesn't deal with questions of ultimate meaning like "why is there a universe?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, I am not reading the wrong Web site. That’s for sure. But the criticism is very much valid. This Web site costs money. We should be considerate. But this Web site also sells. Probably I can come up with an answer of where the water from the oceans came from. If we do or do not find life in outer space it will fit in with our concepts and relationship to God. We will find life in outer space. I perfectly understand Bostonprof. I appreciate very much Ungolythe kind words. The human mind has the potential to find ways to travel into deep space much faster than we dream of today. I understand that this may not be the right forum to discuss this point. I see the world as a whole. But I understand the strategy to further knowledge and move ahead by (artificially) separating theology or philosophy from science. It would be interesting if Dimitri provides another metaphor with his very same idea. But I think is clear enough. Greetings to Manolo Herrera too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts always interesting to trace our past and origin. I'm personally fancy of the theory that human/life on Earth is not originated from earth but brought by extraterrestrials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf earth position right now is the result from drifting from other place, it is possible so. But after billions of years, we're drifting away from our actual ancients.
I've found this article by S. Portegies Zwart very informative and convincing. Since he gave some very precise figures concerning the speed of the solar system orbit around the galaxy center, it got me to ask the following questions concerning general relativity:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe speed he mentionned is 234km/s, or 0,078% of the speed of light, not much but not negligeable either. If one adds the speed at which the Earth orbits the sun: 29,783km/s plus the speed of rotation at the equator , one gets roughly 0,080% of the speed of light or 8/100th of a percent. There would be variations depending on the time of the year, angulation of the solar system relative to motion, etc... The average visible spectrum for the human eye is around 555nm, the percentage mentionned above when applied represents a range of compression or stretch of about 0,45nm, Since it is also expressed in Terahertz, this represents a quantifiable shift. This is without inputting the speed at which the galaxy moves.
Therefore as anybody investigated if the light coming to earth is subject to variations in wavelength relative to motion of the planet? Wouldn't that affect time? That is does time stretches or compresses locally?And could we even notice it ? And what are the absolute values from an immobile viewpoint? Or is the measured speed of light in itself a flawed constant since we are moving ?
I've found this article by S. Portegies Zwart very informative and convincing. Since he gave some very precise figures concerning the speed of the solar system orbit around the galaxy center, it got me to ask the following questions concerning general relativity:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe speed he mentionned is 234km/s, or 0,078% of the speed of light, not much but not negligeable either. If one adds the speed at which the Earth orbits the sun: 29,783km/s plus the speed of rotation at the equator , one gets roughly 0,080% of the speed of light or 8/100th of a percent. There would be variations depending on the time of the year, angulation of the solar system relative to motion, etc... The average visible spectrum for the human eye is around 555nm, the percentage mentionned above when applied represents a range of compression or stretch of about 0,45nm, Since it is also expressed in Terahertz, this represents a quantifiable shift. This is without inputting the speed at which the galaxy moves.
Therefore as anybody investigated if the light coming to earth is subject to variations in wavelength relative to motion of the planet? Wouldn't that affect time? That is does time stretches or compresses locally?And could we even notice it ? And what are the absolute values from an immobile viewpoint? Or is the measured speed of light in itself a flawed constant since we are moving ?
This motion indeed distorts the radiation we observe. See, for example, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090906.html.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'll be pleased to know that we have an upcoming article on the origins of Earth's water. If you can't wait that long, see Jim Kasting's piece in our Fall 1998 special issue, "The Oceans".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscan somebody send me pictures of this issue?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks
I rarely am prompted by all the fallacious statements and ignorant presumptions on the internet to actually bother making an account to respond to them all, thus devoting my life to virtual diatribes. Most of the time I refrain. But these statements of Plain-2009 address a much more "dangerous" issue than some expression of amazement at the complex mechanisms of the universe: the manipulation of empirical data and theoretical mechanisms, of the conclusions of modern science, as proof of God and encouragement of human egoism that this all some teleological design for us. That all these seemingly perfect conditions for life to flourish must be the result of some creator and must be here for us. That is just anthropological hedonism.Who knows how many worlds, universes, laws of nature, gravity-less worlds, have came and gone without the proper laws or mechanisms for life? The conditions had to be right for you to be here to question them, for you to be here, self-aware, and awed by the complex systems that surround. Had the laws of nature not finally aggregated by random chance to product the proper conditions for life to be here...you simply wouldn't exist, you wouldn't be here to be aware of the natural laws constituting the universe. Then it would just be a universe devoid of life, as, though not yet supported by direct empirical evidence, has probably been the case many times through. If there is a God here, it is simply Statistics. WE are a statical miracle of indifferent forces that have had billions of years to briefly provide the proper conditions for life to flourish in, which is more wondrous than any puny anthropological God construed from the metaphors of human minds. Let us experience the genuine mystery of the universe, and set aside these vapid tales of immaterial dictators.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI rarely am prompted by all the fallacious statements and ignorant presumptions on the internet to actually bother making an account to respond to them all, thus devoting my life to virtual diatribes. Most of the time I refrain. But these statements of Plain-2009 address a much more "dangerous" issue than some expression of amazement at the complex mechanisms of the universe: the manipulation of empirical data and theoretical mechanisms, of the conclusions of modern science, as proof of God and encouragement of human egoism that this all some teleological design for us. That all these seemingly perfect conditions for life to flourish must be the result of some creator and must be here for us. That is just anthropological hedonism.Who knows how many worlds, universes, laws of nature, gravity-less worlds, have came and gone without the proper laws or mechanisms for life? The conditions had to be right for you to be here to question them, for you to be here, self-aware, and awed by the complex systems that surround. Had the laws of nature not finally aggregated by random chance to product the proper conditions for life to be here...you simply wouldn't exist, you wouldn't be here to be aware of the natural laws constituting the universe. Then it would just be a universe devoid of life, as, though not yet supported by direct empirical evidence, has probably been the case many times through. If there is a God here, it is simply Statistics. WE are a statical miracle of indifferent forces that have had billions of years to briefly provide the proper conditions for life to flourish in, which is more wondrous than any puny anthropological God construed from the metaphors of human minds. Let us experience the genuine mystery of the universe, and set aside these vapid tales of immaterial dictators.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this