There was a star named Vela, with at least 8 times the Sun’s mass, in the constellation Argo Navis, which was named after the sails of the ship Jason and the Argonauts sailed to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Approximately thirteen thousand five hundred years ago the massive star’s core collapsed in a Type II supernova exploding and ejecting matter in all directions. During the violent event, the star shined 250 times brighter than Venus and was so luminous it could be seen during the day.
When Vela shed its outer layers in a supernova event, not only did it spew ejecti in all directions, its core collapsed into a neutron star and it left a remnant in the form of an expanding nebula of cosmic debris. The neutron star, the Vela Pulsar left behind, packs a mass comparable to that of the Sun into a diameter of only a few kilometers, and is the brightest celestial source of gamma rays that can be seen from Earth. As for the Vela Supernova Remnant it’s an expanding cloud of material, also referred to as Gum 16, with an apparent size of about 8 degrees and an apparent magnitude of 12. The remnant is travelling outwards at 1,200 km/s and is almost 100 light-years across.
One of the supernova ejecti set off on a 500-parsec journey in interstellar space, wading through interstellar radiation and matter consisting of gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays of the Orion-Cygnus spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The lengthy journey traversing through the intervening regions of all-pervading plasma of dissociated ions and electrons would cause any such high-speed object to acquire a high electromagnetic potential in addition to any electrical or magnetic field it already possessed.
Traveling at speeds at or greater than a third of the speed of light the supernova ejecti soon reached the Kuiper belt at the outer rim of a relatively "normal" Solar System with a single, average-sized star, a mix of rocky inner planets and gas giants in the outer region, three Earth like planets, one of which was intermediate-sized, and a relatively stable arrangement of planetary orbits with low eccentricity.
As the supernova ejecti entered the solar system, immense thermoelectric and electromagnetic discharges were directed at it by the outer planets whose own electromagnetic fields were by then beginning to react to its arrival. Awesome flashes could be seen making it shine with dazzling brilliance. The ejecti grew markedly brighter, so bright that the ancients considered it second only to the Sun in heavenly brilliance, and, amongst the Greeks, dubbed it the ‘son’ of the Sun (Sol of Helios). The ejecti was then given the name Phaeton, viewed as driving the wayward chariot of the sun, as he wound his way through the outer planets.