Liu Tomorrow/EyeEm/Getty Images
We rarely have time to write about all the cool science stories that come our way. Also, do a special 12 Days of Christmas series post. Today: A new analysis of an ancient Chinese text reveals the oldest candidate Aurora discovered, predating the next oldest Aurora by three centuries.
Two researchers have identified the earliest descriptions of potential aurora borealis found in ancient Chinese texts. April issue It was published in the journal Advances in Space Research. The authors fix the likely date of the event to 977 or 957 BC. The next earliest description of a candidate aurora is found in an Assyrian cuneiform tablet dating from 679 to 655 BC, three centuries later.
like we’ve been previously reportedthe spectacular kaleidoscopic effect of the so-called Aurora Borealis (or Southern Lights, if in the Southern Hemisphere) is the result of charged particles from the Sun being dumped onto Earth. magnetosphere, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules. It is the interaction that excites these molecules to make them glow. Auroras are usually shades of green, purple, blue and yellow and appear as shimmering ribbons in the sky.
There are different types of auroral displays, such as “diffuse” auroras (a faint glow near the horizon), rare “picket fences”, and “”.“Dune” is displayed, and “discrete auroral arcs”—the most intense kind, appearing in the sky as flickering, billowing curtains of light. Individual aurora arcs are so bright that you can read a newspaper with their light. This was the case during the great geomagnetic storms of August and September 1859. carrington event, of largest ever recorded— It produced blinding auroras visible across the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
of Take no Jitsuroku is an ancient Chinese chronicle written on bamboo strips, yellow emperor So-called Sengoku period (5th century to 221 B.C.E.), an era of intense competition between rival nations.when you’re done Qin country unified the states.The original text of Take no Jitsuroku Buried with King Xiang of Wei, who died in 296 BC, it survived Qin Shi Huang’s tomb as it was not discovered until 281 AD. book burning 212 BC (not to mention burying hundreds of Confucian scholars alive).
MA van der Sluijs & H. Hayakawa, 2022
The original text consisted of 13 scrolls lost during the war. Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). has two versions of him. Take no Jitsuroku still exists. One, known as the “Modern Text”, consists of two of his scrolls printed in the late 16th century. Many scholars believe the text to be a forgery, as there are many discrepancies between it and the original parts quoted in older books, but some parts are faithful to the original. Some scholars argue that it may be Other versions are known as “Ancient Texts” and were pieced together by studying the aforementioned quoted passages found in older books, particularly two of his books dating to the early 8th century AD.
Independent researchers Marinus Anthony van der Sluis and Hisashi Hayakawa of Nagoya University relied on ancient texts for their new analysis. Towards the end, it describes the appearance of “five-colored lights” visible in the northern part of the night sky. King of Zhao of Zhou DynastyAuroras tend to be visible only in polar regions because particles follow the Earth’s magnetic field lines that spread from near the poles. However, strong geomagnetic storms can cause the auroral ellipse to expand to lower latitudes, often accompanied by multicolored lights. According to the authors, during the 10th century BC, the Earth’s magnetic N Pole was about 15 degrees closer to central China than it is today, so people there may have witnessed such a display.
Although this is technically an unconfirmed candidate aurora, “explicit mention of nighttime observations allows us to rule out daytime manifestations of atmospheric optics that may mimic candidate events.” The author writes Furthermore, “the occurrence of polychromatic phenomena in the nighttime northern sky is consistent with visual auroral displays in mid-latitude regions.” According to van der Sluijs and Hayakawa, the relevant Translations of the passage describe the event as a “comet” rather than a “five-colored light”, which is why no aurora candidates have been identified to date. .
DOI: Advances in Space Research, 2022. 10.1016/j.asr.2022.01.010 (About DOIs).
