Supernovae are violent explosions, spewing hot, radioactive material in the death throes of massive stars.
You might think life wouldn’t stand a chance against one. But it turns out life on Earth has withstood *multiple* nearby supernovae.
🧵⚛️🧪
Cara Giovanetti
@idontevencara.bsky.social
1.2K followers 123 following 884 posts
I study dark matter, cosmology, and particle physics for a living at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. On the weekends I write explainers about surprising places physics shows up in the natural world. caragiovanetti.com
![An attempt to mitigate possible analyzer bias by injecting the dataset with artificial signal-like events, a process known as “salting”, was unsuccessful. Drawn from
a distribution consisting of a sum of a WIMP SI-like exponential and a flat NR spectrum out to 250 ± 25 keV,
the salt events followed a NR model defined before the
AmBe calibration was conducted and did not adequately
cover the signal region at high energies. Despite the lack
of coverage, the analysis selections and likelihood models
were finalized before four salt events were revealed (in addition to the seven salt events previously removed as part
of the analysis in Ref. [5]). Three of the salt events fell in
the WS ROI with one just above, but all four fall outside
the 90% containment region for the calibrated NR band.
The salt can be seen in the Supplemental Material. Bias
mitigation in the region above 55 keV therefore relies primarily on the use of unchanged analysis selections from
Ref. [5]. Ultimately, we consider the analysis described here to be a non-blind analysis.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwkqaqshvv5zumjldji2scrz/bafkreihiidgvhmmwuhywno2mmytfhf7y6lxm25advg2rttodamhjqjqrke)
![Photograph of a spider web covered in dew drops, showcasing intricate radial and spiral silk threads. Dew drops glisten with light reflections against a blurred green background.
By Josef F. Stuefer - originally posted to Flickr as [1], CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8091599](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwkqaqshvv5zumjldji2scrz/bafkreiaguex6ejifn2grm67aoipqat66ajod2greaa7slg27qdifjpwc5y)
