History of the solar environment

Abstract

AbstractGalactic cosmic rays (GCR) provide information on the solar neighborhood during the sun's motion in the galaxy. There is now considerable evidence for GCR acceleration by shock waves of supernova in active star-forming regions (OB associations) in the galactic spiral arms. During times of passage into star-forming regions increases in the GCR-flux are expected. Recent data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) are shedding light on the structure of the Milky Way and of its star-forming-regions in spiral arms. Records of flux variations may be found in solar system detectors, and iron meteorites with GCR-exposure times of several hundred million years have long been considered to be potential detectors (Voshage, 1962). Variable concentration ratios of GCR-produced stable and radioactive nuclides, with varying half-lives and therefore integration times, were reported by Lavielleet al. (1999), indicating a recent 38% GCR-flux increase. Potential flux recorders consisting of different pairs of nuclides can measure average fluxes over different time scales (Lavielleet al., 2007; Mathew and Marti, 2008). Specific characteristics of two pairs of recorders (81Kr-Kr and129I-129Xe) are the properties of self-correction for GCR-shielding (flux variability within meteorites of varying sizes). The81Kr-Kr method (Marti, 1967) is based on Kr isotope ratios, while stable129Xe is the decay product of the radionuclide129I, which is produced by secondary neutron reactions on Te in troilites of iron meteorites. The two chronometers provide records of the average GCR flux over 1 and 100 million year time scales, respectively.