I found an article suggesting a supernova injected debris which helped nudge the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.
I couldn't find a name for this hypothetical star/supernova after some research. Is there one? What is it?
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Sign up to join this communityI found an article suggesting a supernova injected debris which helped nudge the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.
I couldn't find a name for this hypothetical star/supernova after some research. Is there one? What is it?
I couldn't find a name for this hypothetical star/nova after some research.
First off, the existence of this former object is hypothetical. Others working in this field have different hypotheses / conjectures; the science is far from settled. Secondly, if true, this star formed a supernova at the time the solar system was born and hence it no longer exists as a star. Thirdly, what's the point? Naming this hypothetical object would add zero credence to the hypothesis, and arguably would detract as being a bit premature.
Names of stars can serve a variety of purposes. Let's look at the different names and designations of Betelgeuse, for example.
Finally, as David Hammen said, the existence of this star is still very much hypothetical. Assuming that the paper he found is the right one (and I think it is), the authors don't claim to identify the supernova progenitor with any supernova remnant, location in the sky, or astronomical object. They simply attempt to support the supernova hypothesis with more modeling, something which itself isn't new in the context of this theory. It's certainly nowhere near compelling enough to name the hypothetical object, nor, I think, is the overall evidence for the theory.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the apparent consent here, that naming the star makes little sense because of its very hypothetical nature.
There are lots of astronomical entities which have been named but whose existence hasn't been directly observed or is lacking major evidence. And why not name them? I'd like to defend this practice. It makes researching them and discussing them more straight forward. And if one day a hypothetical object that has been named is disproven, popular news can pick it up and go "Astrnomers finally ruled out the existense of Wubba-dubba-dub-dub". Wouldn't that be a good thing?
To actually answer your question:
The name for the sun's theoretical progenitor star has been proposed to be Coatlicue in a paper from August 2012. It has been adopted by at least a few publications and has a wikipedia article in 5* languages, which has to count for at least something.
The name stems from Coatlicue - the mother of the sun in Aztec Cosmology/Mythology.
* As of 2023/08/28.
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