Article 8-Space Explosion to Blame for tree ring mystery
This article is about a mysterious event recorded in tree rings in Japanese cedar forest. Apparently the cedar trees recorded a rare event around 774 or 775 A.D and within the rings it showed up as a sharp rise in the amount of radioactive carbon-14 and beryllium-10, which can only be created by incoming particles from space. Scientists were trying to find out what caused the influx of radiation for this mystery to occur. According to Valeri Hambaryan and Ralph Neuhauser of the Atrsophysics Institute of the University of Jena in Germany, the event was most likely a gamma-ray burst. This occurs when two compact objects, for example black holes, hit each other and release high-energy gamma radiation. The fact that the jump in carbon-14 and beryllium-10 was only seen in one year's rings means whatever sparked their creation was short-lived.
I chose this article because it's interesting on how events up in outer-space can have an impact on the Earth, because of the vast distance. In addition, how they find out about what occurred seems very difficult and drawing towards a conclusion must take a couple years. For example they figured out when the event occurred by assuming that both chemicals were unstable and decay on predictable time scales, allowing the scientists to trace these particular tree rings back to such a specific time in the past. However, if this event did perhaps occur, how did it only affect the cedar trees in Japan? It's also amazing to find out what the Earth has been through the past million years and how come these bizarre events don't happen in our time today.
I chose this article because it's interesting on how events up in outer-space can have an impact on the Earth, because of the vast distance. In addition, how they find out about what occurred seems very difficult and drawing towards a conclusion must take a couple years. For example they figured out when the event occurred by assuming that both chemicals were unstable and decay on predictable time scales, allowing the scientists to trace these particular tree rings back to such a specific time in the past. However, if this event did perhaps occur, how did it only affect the cedar trees in Japan? It's also amazing to find out what the Earth has been through the past million years and how come these bizarre events don't happen in our time today.