Associate Research Scientist Jeffrey Cummings and graduate student Sihao Cheng are among the authors of a new study in Nature Astronomy that sheds light on carbon’s origin in the Milky Way. The paper is titled “Carbon star formation as seen through the non-monotonic initial–final mass relation.”

“The findings pose new, stringent constraints on how and when carbon was produced by stars of our galaxy, ending up within the raw material from which the Sun and its planetary system were formed 4.6 billion years ago,” says Cummings.