Here in the US of A, many cities/towns have an organization called "Crime Stoppers", affiliated with a national organization of the same name. Here in Derby KS, we have such an organization - about which, although Hunky Husband is a "member", I know almost nothing. I know that, annually, there is a fund raiser. I know that there is an anonymous (telephone) tip line to which one may call in information about activities/crimes they have observed, and they sometimes offer a small reward for information on a particular crime.
I don't belong to the Derby Ks Crime Stoppers (BTW: there is a Crime Stoppers organization in the UK which came up on Google when I looked for Derby - which Google always interprets as being in the UK unless I tell it differently) and have never supported them in any way other than to lend them Hunky Husband and to give them moral support. Today, I'm asking for your help in solving a crime that is too large for the Derby KS Crime Stoppers: Pollution of the earth with carbon-14!
From Slashdot.org:
Astronomers Investigating Unknown Object That Hit the Earth In 773 AD 12
Posted by
samzenpuson Sunday February 02, 2014 @09:25AM from the what-could-it-be dept.
KentuckyFC writes
"In November 2012, a group of Japanese scientists discovered that the concentration of carbon-14 in Japanese cedar trees suddenly rose between 774 AD and 775 AD. Others have since found similar evidence and narrowed the date to 773 AD. Astronomers think this stuff must have come from space so now the quest is on to find the extraterrestrial culprit. Carbon-14 is continually generated in the atmosphere by cosmic rays hitting nitrogen atoms. But because carbon-14 is radioactive, it naturally decays back into nitrogen with a half-life of about 5700 years. This constant process of production and decay leaves the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere relatively constant at about one part in a trillion will be carbon-14. One possible reason for the increase is that the Sun belched a superflare our way, engulfing the planet in huge cloud of high energy protons. Recent calculations suggest this could happen once every 3000 years and so seems unlikely. Another possibility is a nearby supernova, which bathed the entire Solar System in additional cosmic rays. However, astronomers cannot see any likely candidates nearby and there are no historical observations of a supernova from that time. Yet another possibility is that a comet may have hit the Earth, dumping the extra carbon-14 in the atmosphere. But astronomers have ruled that out on the basis that a comet carrying enough carbon-14 must have been over 100 km in diameter and would surely have left other evidence such as an impact crater. So for the moment, astronomers are stumped."
Please call in any tips that you may have to your local Crime Stoppers organization. Your identity will be protected. Citizens of the world: We must help our under-funded astronomers put the arm on the culprit!
_________________________
BTW: The original Crime Stoppers organization was formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, just seven years before I moved to that city. It's web site declares, "There are now more than 1,100 Crime Stoppers programs throughout the world, in 16 countries. And it all started HERE in Albuquerque. And, in addition to the original program, Campus Crime Stoppers is now in dozens of local schools, providing a safe environment for our K-12 students to learn and grow."
COMMENTS:
Stu reminds me:
Just FYI : There was a historically recorded comet collision with the Earth's atmosphere on 17 January AD 773.
Cop Car:
It appears that the Slashdot.Com posting was not completely aware - and that I failed to exercise due diligence before re-posting. At NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) I find Mysterious abrupt carbon-14 increase in coral contributed by a comet abstracted, starting with the following paragraph.
A large and sudden increase in radiocarbon (14C) around AD 773 are documented in coral skeletons from the South China Sea. The 14C increased by ~ 15‰ during winter, and remain elevated for more than 4 months, then increased and dropped down within two months, forming a spike of 45‰ high in late spring, followed by two smaller spikes. The 14C anomalies coincide with an historic comet collision with the Earth's atmosphere on 17 January AD 773. Comas are known to have percent-levels of nitrogen by weight, and are exposed to cosmic radiation in space. Hence they may be expected to contain highly elevated 14C/12C ratios, as compared to the Earth's atmosphere. The significant input of 14C by comets may have contributed to the fluctuation of 14C in the atmosphere throughout the Earth's history, which should be considered carefully to better constrain the cosmic ray fluctuation.
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