Sky 'Crucifix' in Ancient Text May Be Mystery-Solving Supernova

Livescience ^ | Friday, June 29, 2012 | Life's Little Mysteries Staff

[SunkenCiv]

According to an Old English manuscript chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons, a mysterious "red crucifix" appeared in the "heavens" over Britain one evening in A.D. 774. Now astronomers say it may have been the supernova explosion that sprinkled unexplained traces of carbon-14 in tree rings that year, halfway around the world in Japan.

Jonathon Allen, an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, made the connection this week after listening to a Nature podcast. He heard a team of Japanese scientists discussing new research in which they measured an odd spike in carbon-14 levels in tree rings from the year A.D. 774 or 775. They thought the spike must have come from a burst of high-energy radiation striking the upper atmosphere and triggering an increase in the rate of carbon-14 formation...

...Allen, a biochemistry major with an interest in history... came across an English translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a history of England written in the ninth century, with this line in the entry for A.D. 774: "This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset."

...The connection is plausible, according to Geza Gyuk, an astronomer at Chicago's Adler Planetarium in Illinois, who has used the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to investigate past astronomical events...

The remains of a once-explosive supernova illuminate part of a nearby galaxy in this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. CREDIT: NASA/ESA/HEIC/Hubble Heritage Team

[ConservativeMind]

I read something about this very theory at least a month ago. Was it something you posted or something on Phys.org I read?

[ConservativeMind]

It was on The Register in the UK on June 5th:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/06/05/mysterious_energy_blast/

Look at the post by “Resound” at 5:52 GMT.

This guy beat Mr Allen’s podcast.

[ConservativeMind]

Also noted by this blog that day:

http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2012/06/anno-domini-774.html

[ConservativeMind]

The Nature podcast was from June 7th. Mr. Allen is NOT the first person to find this.

http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index-2012-06-07.html

[ForGod'sSake]

His long-standing interest in history was helpful, he notes. "I knew that going that far back, there's very limited written history," he says. "The only things I'd ever seen or heard of were religious texts and 'chronicles' that listed kings and queens, wars and things of that nature."

This guy should get out more.

[zot]

Interesting, but rather slim evidence. I wonder if astronomers can pin-point a super nova appearance that year.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice find!

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/06/05/mysterious_energy_blast/

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/user/58453/

http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2012/06/anno-domini-774.html

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/ang08.asp

[snip] I read something about this very theory at least a month ago. Was it something you posted or something on Phys.org I read? [/snip]

There’s a post, somewhere on FR, that I read literally in the past couple of days, before I saw this “red crucifix” thing, someone could recall learning (years ago) about some kind of celestial phenom (comet, meteor/ite, supernova) that appeared to lead to the Black Death, I think it was. :’) Wish I knew where. Someone asked me in open thread if I knew what it was.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, I resemble that remark. For that matter, it’s the very basis for the success of the worldwide web...

[SunkenCiv]

[cyber noogies]

:’)