Earth is surrounded by a bubble of small stars from cosmic explosion

New Delhi : Did you know that the Earth and our solar system has been located inside a bubble of stars created due to cosmic explosion? The 1,000-light-year wide cosmic bubble helps birth thousands of baby stars.

According to a new study with limited information, we have about this "superbubble" - suggesting that 15 supernovae (explosions of stars) were responsible for the creation of this bubble.

What is cosmic bubble?

The astronomers had first spotted the bubble in 1970 and called it "local bubble". They had observed that no new star had taken birth inside the bubble in last 14 million years. All stars inside the bubble were formed before it existed or had travelled from outside the bubble to come here - like our very own Sun.

The cosmic explosions that created this bubble also shot off star-creating materials like hydrogen gas to its edge, turning the region right outside this bubble into a nursery of baby stars.

The new study published on January 12 in Nature claims that the Local Bubble isn't a uniform sphere, but instead resembles a randomised blob - representing different supernovae that led to its creation. And it is continuously expanding.

The shock wave from powerful supernova explosions created a "dense shell that now forms the surface of the Local Bubble", Catherine Zucker, a NASA Hubble fellow told LiveScience.

The researchers have also found that the bubble is expanding at a rate of 6.4 kilometres per second (4 miles per second).