Thierry Montmerle
Laboratoire d' Astrophysique de Grenoble
 

"Was a Supernova Present at the Birth of the Sun? Facts and Controversies"
 

During the last decade or so, our understanding of star formation, on the one hand, and of the earliest stages of the solar system, on the other, have progressively converged into an increasingly detailed history of the environment in which the Sun was born. Evidence from past radioactivity in meteorites shows that high-energy events played a key role, implying that the Sun was born in an OB association, almost simultaneously with a supernova explosion. However, the probability of such an event, and the context of supernova explosions in the galaxy, raise several controversial issues which I will discuss in detail.