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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."
The letters are Elvish, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
A.D. 774. This year the Northumbrians banished their king, Alred, from York at Easter-tide; and chose Ethelred, the son of Mull, for their lord, who reigned four winters. This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset; the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wonderful serpents were seen in the land of the South-Saxons.
http://omacl.org/Anglo/part2.html
Twas' a comment by JustOk.
Now this undergrad needs to get funding to track the source article down in it's original form and have it authenticated and cross verified with other ancient works. He will also need several other undergrads to cross check his work, several hours of super computer time or better their own workstations, also the usual funding for a trip (I mean "conference") of three weeks in the Bahamas to discuss all this with his peers after he writes the paper up and has it submitted to the proper journals to have the proper peer review that noone can afford to read in the correct publications. I figure 2 to 3 million dollars should do it. After all this could be the tiny spark of evidence as why reading tree rings and it's tree ring data should not or should be included in figuring out how Global Warming going back then and now, and how the whole normalizing of the tree ring data should be rethought! Micheal Mann should be all over this!
Man, sciencing is so much easier these days.
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.
Interesting to me, is that in the linked article there is a slashdot comment with the "red crucifix" text discussed in this article.
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2893343&cid=40208359
The podcast that the student listened to was produced on June 7 and the slashdot comment was June 4. Hmm... to think user JustOK could have been in Nature.
"The increase in 14C levels is so clear that the scientists, led by Fusa Miyake, a cosmic-ray physicist from Nagoya University in Japan, conclude that the atmospheric level of 14C must have jumped by 1.2% over the course of no longer than a year, about 20 times more than the normal rate of variation"
Does this mean that new supernova contributed 1.2% of radiation of all stars, including Sun? Does Sun contribute to Carbon 14 contents in tree rings?
Were similar tree ring changes has been detected during known supernova events in history?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Number of times this has happened: too many to count.
That's not very scientific is it?
I didn't get way into physics in high school but I was interested. Hearing this explanation confuses me so there are probably more people than me who are wondering this. How exactly can cosmics radiation can cause carbon atoms in the atmosphere to gain neutrons? No new carbon is being formed, obviously, so existing carbon atoms would have to be turning into carbon-14 and I didn't think it was possible to just slip in another neutrons without basically blowing up the nucleus of any atom. I mean we don't "make" tritium for example by stuffing in more nuetrons magically, we have to sort it out of seawater. I would bet I could randomly throw my mouse and hit 3 physicists here at slashdot so could someone explain what the correlation between supernovas and carbon 14 is?
Hmmm given all the evidence, I'd say it's actually a 49% chance red crucifix = UFO explosion over Japan (since apparently the radiation-stuffed trees were localized to just Japan I guess, although not many trees elsewhere live to be 1300 years old) and 49% chance there's an obvious link between reactor meltdown and the year 775 via a magic quantum portal time teleportation particle traveling effect thing that blasted carbon-14 into the past and 2% chance that we're all living in a computer simulation and some programmer left incorrect calculations in for trees in the year 775 on accident or for lolz or as an easter egg :-P
Dragons!!!
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
Is there also a mysterious layer of ash for the year 793? That year the chronicle has "fiery dragons flying across the firmament".
And how might the people of that time and place describe near-miss asteroids that enter the atmosphere but do not impact the earth?
Perhaps the word "dragon" was not meant to be taken literally and was merely used as a metaphor, a literary device?
I guess we can mark that UFC off the list. Next please.
Why go the facebook route?
The discussion is linked directly underneath the submission in the "related links" section.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Can't tell if stupid, or ignorant.
Well, for it to have affected the entire planet, the supernova would have had to be on the celestial equator. If it was displaced significantly from the celestial equator, then the radiant energy from the supernova simply wouldn't hit the Earth's surface at certain latitudes - for the same reasons that the polar regions experience periods of perpetual darkness.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
And most of these "observations" of weird stuff in the night sky were due to the aurorae.
As opposed to today, where they are due to alcohol.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset;
I'm a little dubious that a supernova, even one visible only in the west after sunset, would be described as a red crucifix. In astronomical photos stars look like crosses, but that's an artifact of the telescope optics, which they didn't have in the dark ages. A supernova just wouldn't look like a cross.
On the other hand, I doubt it's aurora. Since England is pretty far north, and they didn't have artificial lights at night, they would see aurora far more often than we do now, and it just wouldn't rate such a mention. (Besides, an auroral manifestation in the shape of a cross? Dubious.)
A sun pillar plus a layer of clouds would make a crucifix, though. I'll go with that as my most-likely explanation.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Death star's right here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So instead we get to worry about modern idiots being offended by something that wasn't offensive back in the day. Your Dogma is showing.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
They drank more alcohol back then than in modern times. Before water treatment facilities, you drank the beer which was sterilized during the boiling, the alcohol would kill wild bacteria, and the hops inhibited growth of other bacteria. Beer is also a way to keep grains stored for a longer period of time; dry grain does eventually spoil.
It's irrelevant because C14 is derived from N14 in the upper atmosphere, and the atmosphere is well-stirred. The higher C14 would get mixed in globally no matter which side of the Earth was irradiated.
The real issue is that all these sorts of "global event in year X" events start with a discovery at one or a few sites. For example, the iridium spike at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary was first found at Gubbio, Italy. Then it was found at dozens of other sites world-wide at the same boundary, but it took time to do those studies. Anyway, the original paper predicts that if you look elsewhere you should see similar spikes in C14 at that point in time in the record, which I assume people are already actively investigating. Give it a year or two and the possibility will either be confirmed (it is global) or negated (not found elsewhere, which probably means some other explanation).
One again Steve is having masturbation fantasies about fucking elven girls with big tits.
And thanks to you now everybody's doing that. Next time keep your big mouth shut, and maybe we can get some work done.
It's irrelevant because C14 is derived from N14 in the upper atmosphere, and the atmosphere is well-stirred. The higher C14 would get mixed in globally no matter which side of the Earth was irradiated.
Actually, only the troposphere is well stirred. The stratosphere and layers above it aren't stirred as much, and they settle into layers: hence stratosphere. Nevertheless, your point is well taken. By the time the excess C14 reaches the leaves of the trees, it is most likely well dispersed all over the planet.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I looked into the literature on supernovas and carbon-14 and found this: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19690024196_1969024196.pdf also see: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469(1964)021%3C0134%3APOCBSP%3E2.0.CO%3B2
The 775 C-14 spike is 20 times the normal level. According to this paper the closest recent supernova (the Crab Nebula supernova in 1054) was only capable of producing a spike 8% more than normal.
To get a 2000% increase over normal you need a supernova 16 times closer, about 400 light years away, and 250 times brighter than 1054. The angular diameter of such a remnant today would be larger than the full moon, it seems unlikely that there are any dense dust clouds of this visible size for an object like this to hide behind. An obscure reference in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle does no a credible supernova make.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Beer only keeps about eight to twelve months. Properly stored [whole] grain can keep for decades, possibly even centuries under the right conditions.