RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
13 May 2026
Rare isotopes hint at when the Solar System entered the Local Interstellar Cloud.
A section of an Antarctic ice core. Other sections of the core hold very low levels of iron-60, which is found in interstellar dust. Credit: Alfred Wegener Institute/Esther Horvath
Antarctic ice contains evidence that Earth entered an interstellar dust cloud more than 40,000 years ago 1 .
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