Slashdot Mirror
Has a Biochem Undergrad Solved a Cosmic Radiation Mystery?
scibri writes "A few weeks ago, reports of a mysterious spike in carbon-14 levels in Japanese tree rings corresponding to the year 775 intrigued astronomers. Such a spike could only have been caused by a massive supernova or solar flare, but there was no evidence of either of these at that time. Until Jonathon Allen, a biochem undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, Googled it. He found a reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to a 'red crucifix' appearing in the sky in 774, and speculates that it could have been a supernova hidden behind a cloud of dust, which could mask the remnants of the exploded star from astronomers today."
He proposed an explanation more plausible than people before.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
And yet, without the religious text, there wouldn't even be a written record of what happened at all. I'd say everyone wins.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
When you're talking about events 1200 years ago you're not exactly looking for a telescope picture.
There's evidence of a supernova, or possibly something else, from that time period in Japan. So what was it? Well, apparently in the UK they observed some weird shit that could have been a supernova. So it might actually have been a supernova.
Imagine if this was the other way. There was some written european evidence of some weird red thing in the sky in 774. What would tell what that red thing was? a spike in carbon 14 in tree rings from that time period would make 'supernova' a good guess.
It's not really a sciences problem, it's a language problem. Outside of Japan I bet most people didn't really care, and the Japanese didn't have the desire to search through piles of old foreign language documents on the vague guess they might say something that could have caused a carbon 14 spike in 773, 774 or 775. Digitized images and electronic search make that problem easier, and now the question for verification becomes one of finding if there are similar descriptions in other languages for that time period.