Did An 8th Century Gamma Ray Burst Irradiate Earth?

It’s Always Something (IAS)

Don’t tell the Global Warming Crazies, then they can’t push their Cap and Trade agenda.

Sounds like something to do with Islam and the Devil.

The gore-bull warming alarmists fail to realze that the more we learn about the nature of the universe the more powerless in the face of nature we discover we are.

A sufficiently powerful Gamma Ray Buirst would make any perceived “gore-bull” warming look like a nice pleasant day at the beach for life on earth.

See what posting an interesting article gets you? Crap comments about global warming and islam.

N14 goes to C14 under neutron irradiation, and I thought the neutrons came from solar protons and some galactic cosmic ray interactions.

Would a gamma burst (photons) generate enough neutrons to increase C14 from N14 or O17?

I think a good alternative would be a series of extremely large solar flares.

You are only playing tic-tac-toe on this thread.

C’mon, tell us. Maybe the commies or hippies did it.

Just the Galactic Empire dropping off another load of thetans...

So Dr. Evil went back in time to affect the outcome of the Battle of Berztia?

“Hulk smash puny gamma ray!!!”

A nearby short duration gamma-ray burst may be the cause...

IOW, a WAG.

This "scientific article" is very incomplete. I can find no data demonstrating the obvious fact that those gamma ray bursts were the fault of George W. Bush. Neither do I see any indication of the incontrovertible truth that these heartless capitalist gamma ray bursts cause the most lasting harm to women, children, members of federally recognized racial minorities, or gays, lesbians, and the transgendered.

I therefore must reject the implications of this article. The work was done at the University of Jena, which as everyone knows was visited by prominent NAZI Party officials.

I believe neutrons can also come from “star formation” which occurs when a nucleus is hit by a gamma photon having more energy than the binding energy of said nucleus. The nucleus blows up (leaving a star pattern on cloud-chamber photographs, hence the name) and not shown on those photographs, some of the remnants are neutrons. This only happens at gamma energies well above 5 or 10 MeV. Even if the gammas didn’t penetrate far into the atmosphere, they wouldn’t need to as there are nitrogens up there, and anyway the neutrons can penetrate.

If that happened, science also tells us we would all have super powers.

So I am saying no.

Then again, maybe the Vikings had nuclear weapons. (Which is why they were so feared.)

Really? It took until the 12th post for anyone to make a Hulk Smash reference?

I was watching the Universe (on the science channel) and they indicated that at least one star is pointed at the Earth with the power to send a gamma ray burst when it goes nova.

The companion paper seems to indicate that the phototonic gammaization inhibited istropoic nucleazation. It was the nucleazation reaction that was needed to restrict the catalyzation to C14.

The trees don’t really realize the change and thus the presence in the very isolated rings.

Three D chess

Also called spallation. I have seen spallation at the HERMESIII accelerator, but usually with a high-Z target. Not much from Al, plenty from W.

It’s a possibility to get n from high energy photons, but the lower the Z, the smaller the cross section.

I kind of like the suggestion that it was Viking nukes! Or maybe a “natural reactor” like at Gabon that has not been discovered yet.

[[Did An 8th Century Gamma Ray Burst Irradiate Earth?]]

After wtinessign the left in action for decades, does this question really need to be posed?

yup...These threads (and the space/science threads) used to be fantastic on FR. These days, only the wannabe comediennes show up with the same tired posts.

The spike is apparently a 1.2% increase found in the "... analysis of the rings of two Japanese cedar trees "

I think more samples from a wider spatially distributed tree sampling is in order before thinking that the sky is falling and we're all going to die (maybe).

Just the Galactic Empire dropping off another load of thetans...

Damned Zenu.

I don’t know enough about this kind of science to completely understand how nitrogen plus gamma rays gives you carbon and berryllium. I’m guessing that you get a nitrogen isotope that decays into Carbon 14 which then (or another carbon isotope) decays into berryllium and an alpha particle. I’m sure I’m way off.

Any experts out there?

That is only the increase in Carbon 14

Beryllium -10 is radioactive with half life of over
1 million years, it would be found by examining ice cores
and picking up the increase in Be-10 for that time

Really? It took until the 12th post for anyone to make a Hulk Smash reference?

I was kind of shocked, too. Schools just aren't providing an education in the classics anymore.

To answer part of my own question:
14N7 + n = 14C6 + p

(according to wikipedia)

It ws the beginning of the Little Ice Age which caused Cold Fusion, causing X-RAY`s to splatter all over Italy.

This event is preserved in the Italian oral tradition known as

THE BADA BADA BING.

LOL

“If its not one thing its something else” Rozanne Rozannadana

Mysterious radiation burst recorded in tree rings
Nature | Sunday, June 3, 2012 | Richard A. Lovett
Posted on Mon Jun 4 13:58:45 2012 by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2891403/posts

The Cosmic Story of Carbon-14
Starts with a Bang | 6/4/12 | Ethan Siegel
Posted on Tue Jun 5 03:48:06 2012 by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2891641/posts

Your reply got me interested enough to look it up. yes, a high-energy gamma photon can cause neutron ejection: Photoneutron

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/7316590-E86RO8/7316590.pdf

The overall cross section for N14 is about 96 mb, but the threshold is pretty high, 24 MeV.

I guess a gamma ray pulse could do it, but at 24 MeV those photons would penetrate pretty deep, the primaries and secondaries would dose up the surface, I think.

I don’t have access to MCNP right now, that would give a clue.


GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe

Thanks blam. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith

Thanks blam.

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I like the idea of Viking Nukes! LOL!

closely related:

Researcher points to Sun as likely source of eighth-century ‘Charlemagne event’
PhysOrg | 11-20-2012
Posted on Wed Dec 12 08:34:52 2012 by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2967972/posts

Astronomers could also look for the merged object, a 1200 year old black hole or neutron star 3000-12000 light years from the Sun but without the characteristic gas and dust of a supernova remnant.

Pretty big patch of sky to look in.

It's been ages since a posting of recent adds to the Catastrophism keyword (minus the current topic; sorted newest to oldest):

link only, crap from Plait
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/01/21/earth_hit_by_a_gamma_ray_burst_did_a_cosmic_blast_hit_us_in_775_ad.html

"...the Universe is a dangerous place...."

Yep, be careful out there.

I thought spallation was only caused by impact of momentous particles. (That is, not including photons.) You knock a nucleus on the front, and, Newton’s Cradle style, a neutron pops out the back. (Which in any case is different from star formation which completely blows the nucleus apart. )

yup...These threads (and the space/science threads) used to be fantastic on FR. These days, only the wannabe comediennes show up with the same tired posts.

Agreed. It could be that many of the science experts on FR found science forums to post.

SunkenCiv,

How do you manage to have all of those posts saved up?

Photons can do it too. With photoneutrons, you get neutrons, with spallation by photons you can get bigger particles. Takes an energetic photon.

Ye Hulke Smasheth!