Japanese scientists journeyed to Antarctica
to recover evidence of alterations to Earth’s atmosphere caused in
medieval times by supernovae recorded by scholars - including obscure
Irish monasteries where monks later interpreted them signs of the
Antichrist . No, this isn’t the plot of the next Dan Brown novel (or a
Dan Brow fanfiction written by an X-Files addict): this is real science.
Supernovae release terrific amounts of energy, as in “If one happened
too close, the planet would be sterilized” truly terror-inducing
terrific. Some of this energy is fired off as gamma rays, which can
travel thousands of light-years and still pack enough of a punch after
to alter the atmosphere - which is exactly what happened in 1006 and
again in 1054, when gamma rays blasted the upper atmosphere and created
spikes in NO3 levels. There was also quite a lot of visible light,
creating a star visible even during the day which was noted by various
Chinese, Egyptian and even monastic records.
To access past records of the atmosphere, a team of Japanese scientists
carefully extracted 122 meters of ice core from Antarctica. Even
better, to locate events on such a stretch of frozen time you use known
volcanic atmosphere-altering events as reference points - in other
words, these guys use exploding mountains as a ruler.
The team found NO3 spikes at times corresponding to 1006 and 1054, as
well as a mysterious unknown third event - and we remind you that this
is not a movie, even though that sounds so much like a second act
reveal leading to a lost city or something, we can practically see
Nicolas Cage’s shocked expression.
Unlike any movie adventurer of the unknown, who has a tendency to
steal/detonate every single relic they find, the Japanese team have
also made things easier for anyone who follows them. The unprecedented
detail of their observations reveals a standard 11-year cycle in
ice-core records, corresponding to the sunspot cycle. This will help
future ice-core observers track the time of events.
These people look at timescales so huge that the pulsing of the sun itself is just the ticking of a clock.
Posted by Luke McKinney.
Links:
http://arxivblog.com/?p=1239
https://www.cs.tcd.ie/Dan.McCarthy/#Astro_obs_Vistas
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