system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do the heavier elements that make up the Earth come from one specific supernova?

If they are the product of several supernovas, can we trace back the general area they came from?
gpt
This question can't be answered at this time. We have only a very small amount of isotopic compositions of meteorites, and they pretty much all appear to be the same. When we DO find some other meteorites with a different isotopic composition and a fair sampling of what that frequency is, we might know something.

We do NOT have an isotopic composition of the asteroids, of mars, Venus, and the moons of the other planets, either. Those are where the answers may be. If those are all very much alike, isotopically, then we will know we came from one regional source, but we cannot know if it was from one supernova or many. That would require knowing the isotopic compositions of many stellar systems, which we must first sample physically, to see of those are different from our own, as they are likely to be.

It's possible to know the elemental composition of stars by comparing their spectra to our own sun for heavy and ferrous metals. But this doesn't give much of a stable standard to compare with, either. So, from 1 SN, or several, we can't know at this time.