Massive Cosmic Explosion Struck Medieval Earth | Medieval News

A massive burst of inter-stellar radiation may have stuck the Earth in the middle ages, researchers have announced. It is thought that the explosion occurred when two black holes or neutron stars collided somewhere in the Milky Way. The resultant gamma ray burst sent shockwaves through the galaxy, and hit our planet in the eighth century AD, the German team behind the study told the BBC. It is the latest development of the theory that the middle ages saw a spike in the amount of radiation that can now be found in trees and rocks. In 2012 a Japanese team found that ancient cedar trees had high levels of carbon-14, an isotope which is created when radiation strikes atoms in our upper atmosphere. Further research on radiation found in ice in the USA pinned the explosion down to between 774 and 775 AD. An entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 774 reads: “This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset; the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wonderful serpents were seen in the land of the South-Saxons.”

via Massive Cosmic Explosion Struck Medieval Earth | Medieval News.

According to V. V. Hambaryan and R. Neuhauser ("A Galactic short gamma-ray burst as cause for the 14C peak in AD 774/5", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1/20/2013):

[The event] may have been observable by naked eye, but only for up to one day, i.e. much shorter than a typical SN. If reports about such a sighting remain missing, it can be due to the short time-scale, strong absorption, bad weather and/or sky location near the Sun and/or above unpopulated areas such as the Pacific during the short visibility period. A missing historical observation and a missing SNR are fully consistent with a short GRB.

As the Huffington Post article (“Massive Cosmic Explosion ‘Struck Medieval Earth’”, 1/21/2013) reports, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records an unusual even for the year 774:

This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset; the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wonderful serpents were seen in the land of the South-Saxons.

Here’s the passage from Earle and Plummer, page 51:

Her Norðhymbra fordrifon heora cining Alhred of Eoferwic on Eastertid. 7 genamon Æðelred Molles sunu heom to hlaforde. 7 se rixade -iiii- gear. 7 men ge segon read Cristes mel on heofenum æfter sunnan setlan gange. on Þy geare ge fuhton Myrce 7 Cantwara æt Ottanforda. 7 wundorlice nædran wæron ge seogene on Suðseaxna lande.