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Has a Biochem Undergrad Solved a Cosmic Radiation Mystery?

Posted by Soulskill on from the nice-work-scoob dept.

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."

13 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pics by game+kid · · Score: 4, Funny

    The letters are Elvish, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here.

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  2. A few weeks ago in slashdot... by kanto · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:A few weeks ago in slashdot... by scibri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Despite the best efforts of a few of us on the online team here, Nature is still pretty 'old media'. So if someone wants credit for an idea, they have to get it touch with us directly!

    2. Re:A few weeks ago in slashdot... by Rogue+Haggis+Landing · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's the proof of a supernova in 774?

      Yeah, that's credible.

      One wonders what the "wonderful serpents" were.

      You're simply not going to get a definitive record of a celestial event in 8th century Europe. Records are very scanty, often non-existent. This is so marked that it's led to an entertaining conspiracy theory or two claiming that the early Middle Ages didn't actually exist and were faked at some later date. Back in the real world, there's so little evidence for most things about Anglo-Saxon England that the claim that the people of York chose Ethelred, son of Mull to be their king is almost as suspect as the claim about the wonderful serpents.

      So the best you can usually hope for in the English 8th century is a monk somewhere recording events in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (or a Anglo-Saxon Chronicle -- there were a few of them made at different times and in different places). The Chronicle doesn't really go for detail. They sum up a year in a few declarative sentences, with no description, so you're never going to get a description of a celestial event, you're going to get a simplfied interpretation of it. This interpretation will be in terms that the monk or the eyewitnesses he got his information from understood. They didn't know anything about supernovas, but he knew about miraculous crosses in the sky, like that which appeared to the future Roman Emperor Constantine during his fighting against his rival Maxentius. So whatever it was that someone saw, it got interpreted as a crucifix.

      The point isn't that something definitely appeared in the sky in 774. There's a chance that someone made up the red crucifx, or hallucinated it, or the chronicler lied or garbled a story he heard fifth-hand. But if it did happen, there's no reason to think that there will be better written evidence than a vague line in one copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

    3. Re:A few weeks ago in slashdot... by Sir_Sri · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Funding needed! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  4. Scientific mystery solved by Google by boristdog · · Score: 4, Funny

    Man, sciencing is so much easier these days.

  5. No, he did not by mapkinase · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He proposed an explanation more plausible than people before.

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  6. Slashdot comment on June 4 predates podcast by vossman77 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:Religious misinterpret phenomenon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Number of times this has happened: too many to count.

    That's not very scientific is it?

  8. Re:physics question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The radiation turns one proton in a nitrogen atom into a neutron, changing the atom from nitrogen to carbon, with two extra neutrons.

  9. Re:Religious misinterpret phenomenon by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And yet, without the religious text, there wouldn't even be a written record of what happened at all. I'd say everyone wins.

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  10. Re:Religious misinterpret phenomenon by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

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