Scorpius–Centaurus association

[6] The Sco–Cen OB association appears to be the most pronounced part of a large complex of recent (<20 million years) and ongoing star-formation.

[4] The stellar members of the Sco–Cen association have convergent proper motions of approximately 0.02–0.04 arcseconds per year, indicative that the stars have nearly parallel velocity vectors, moving at about 20 km/s with respect to the Sun.

Several supernovae have exploded in Sco–Cen over the past 15 million years, leaving a network of expanding gas superbubbles around the group,[8] including the Loop I Bubble.

To explain the presence of radioactive 60Fe in deep ocean ferromanganese crusts and in biogenic magnetite crystals within Pacific Ocean sediments[9] it has been hypothesized that a nearby supernova, possibly a member of Sco–Cen, exploded in the Sun's vicinity roughly 3 million years ago,[10] causing the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary marine extinction.

[11] However, other findings cite the distance at which this supernova occurred at more than 100 parsec, maintaining that it is not likely not to have contributed to this extinction through the mechanism of what is known as the ultra-violet B (UV-B) catastrophe.

Map of the area containing stars of the Scorpius–Centaurus association
Main associations of the Solar antapex half of the galactic plane , with Sco-Cen on the left
Close up on the Orion Arm , with major stellar associations (yellow), nebulae (red) and dark nebulae ( grey ) coreward from the Local Bubble with Sco-Cen.