A collision of black holes, white dwarfs or neutron stars could have been responsible for an energetic Gamma Ray Burst that hit the Earth in the Middle Ages, according to a study carried out by German astronomers from the Institute for Astrophysics of the University of Jena and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . According to the work, the inhabitants of the Earth at that time did not find out.
Analysis of two isotopes, Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10, have revealed that, in the year 774 or 775, a very short explosion (about two seconds), at a distance of between 3,000 and 12,000 light years, would have released energy in the form of gamma rays, which are the most energetic part of the electromagnetic spectrum that includes visible light. However, it seems that it went totally unnoticed by our ancestors. According to the researchers, everything indicates that when the radiation reached Earth it was absorbed by the atmosphere, and therefore there are no obvious signs of a massive event. " If the gamma-ray burst had been much closer to our planet, it could have caused significant damage to the biosphere, " as explained by Ralph Neuh? User, co-author of the work, who adds that, according to what we have evidence thanks to the records of the trees, "something like this has only happened once in the last 3000 years."
