Fusa Miyake
Japanese cosmic-ray physicist who found the 774 CE radiation spike
- Position
- Nagoya University (Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory in 2012)
- Field
- Cosmic-ray physics; radiocarbon in tree rings
- Known for
- 2012 Nature paper on a carbon-14 jump in 774–775 CE
- Legacy
- Such spikes are now called 'Miyake events'
The Nagoya physicist whose 2012 study of Japanese cedar rings revealed a sudden carbon-14 jump in 774–775 CE, now called a Miyake event.
What is Fusa Miyake known for?
Fusa Miyake is a Japanese physicist at Nagoya University who studies cosmic rays through the radiocarbon recorded in tree rings.
In 2012 she led a team that published in Nature an analysis of yearly rings from two Japanese cedar trees. They found a sudden increase in carbon-14 between the growth years 774 and 775 CE, about twenty times larger than the change expected from ordinary solar activity. Carbon-14 forms when high-energy particles from space strike the atmosphere, so the jump pointed to a short, intense burst of radiation. The finding was soon confirmed in trees from Europe and North America and in ice cores.
Most researchers now attribute the 774 spike, and a smaller one in 993 CE that her team found later, to extreme solar particle storms far stronger than any measured in the space age. These events are now called Miyake events and are used to pin exact calendar dates on wooden archaeological finds.
Her 2012 discovery is the scientific basis of the site's entry on the 774 CE radiation spike.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeThe 774 CE red cross and radiation spike
Sources
- Miyake, F. et al., 'A signature of cosmic-ray increase in AD 774–775 from tree rings in Japan', Nature 486 (2012)Primary text
- Wikipedia, 'Miyake event'Reference
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