An inexplicable astronomical event happened 12 centuries ago, according to the data obtained by Japanese scientists when studying long-lived trees, writes the journal Nature.
Fusa Miyake and his colleagues at Nagoya University investigated the carbon-14 (C14) content of Japanese cedar wood. To their own surprise, they found that between 774 and 775 years old, the trees received radiation that was 1.2 percent higher than the background rate. For comparison, usually the annual deviation in the content of radioactive carbon does not exceed 0.05 percent.
Cosmic ray trail
Radioactive carbon is formed when the nuclei of atmospheric nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic ray neutrons - beams of elementary particles of extraterrestrial origin. C14 is one of the radioisotopes that are produced in all types of nuclear explosions. It is absorbed by trees during photosynthesis and leaves its signature in the annual rings.
Scientists performed an experiment: they took rings of long-lived cedars and tracked how the amount of the C14 isotope changed in them. Then, a curve of fluctuations in the intensity of cosmic rays was plotted during this period and compared with the concentration of the isotope beryllium-10 in the ice column raised during drilling in Antarctica. The isotope of beryllium is also formed in the atmosphere under the influence of cosmic rays. For greater accuracy, the results were compared with C14 levels in trees from North America and Europe. The data studied by Japanese scientists refer to a period with a total duration of 10 thousand years.
Flash - one or more?
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No one knows yet what to do with the result. "I can't imagine a single burst of radiation that would be so bright," Igor Moskalenko, an astrophysicist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study, told New Scientist. "Most likely, there was a series of relatively weak flares over the course of one to three years."
According to Miyake, a supernova could be an ideal candidate for the mysterious radiation trail, but such an event would be preserved in historical memory. After all, a supernova explosion is the biggest catastrophe that can happen to a star. Thus, the supernova that exploded in our Milky Way in 1054 was clearly visible even during the day. However, there is no massive evidence of such an event, which would refer to the 770s. Another explanation is the influence of the flare on the Sun, but then this flare should have been "more powerful than everything we know about," the Japanese scientist is sure.
Something must have happened in the Universe, and earthlings knew about it, believes paleodendrologist Michael Bailey of Queens University in Belfast (UK). He points out that the English chronicler Roger of Wendover wrote in the 13th century: "In the year 776, the Lord showed terrible signs in the sky." Why, then, other historical sources are silent about this spectacle? Bailey and colleagues will try to answer this question in a new study.
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Ufologists have developed the idea of Igor Moskalenko in their direction. And they assumed: Earth accidentally fell into a kind of star wars. She found herself in the line of fire, led by alien ships of warring civilizations. They fired at each other from gamma lasers. And we were a little hooked.
There is also a less belligerent hypothesis. And also from ufologists. It is based on research by the American astronomer Harris, who back in 1986 tried to prove that gamma-ray bursts - both long and short - are the result of the motion of starships powered by antimatter. And gamma quanta appear during the annihilation of antimatter with ours - ordinary. The starship, receiving energy for movement, produces such explosions from time to time.
Harris even tried to trace a series of gamma-ray bursts lying in one line. He assured that this is the trajectory of the alien ship. The scientist counted as many as 134 such trajectories - they say the movement in the Universe is very lively.
So maybe 1237 years ago, the Earth was touched by the exhaust of a starship that was carrying out maneuvers near us?