paper

The earliest drawings of datable auroras and a two-tail comet from the Syriac Chronicle of Zūqnīn

arXiv:1610.08690 · doi:10.1093/pasj/psw128

Abstract

People have probably been watching the sky since the beginning of human history. Observers in pre-telescopic ages recorded anomalous events and these astronomical records in the historical documents provide uniquely valuable information for modern scientists. Records with drawings are particularly useful, as the verbal expressions recorded by pre-telescopic observers, who did not know the physical nature of the phenomena, are often ambiguous. However, drawings for specific datable events in the historical documents are much fewer than the verbal records. Therefore, in this paper, we show the possible earliest drawings of datable auroras and a two-tail comet in a manuscript of the Chronicle of Zūqnīn, a Syriac chronicle up to 775/776 CE to interpret their nature. They provide not only the historical facts in the realm around Amida but also information about low-latitude aurora observations due to extreme space weather events and the existence of sun-grazing comets.

2016/10/26 accepted for publication in PASJ. Due to the matter of license, we cannot show some figures on the preprint version. Please see the published version in PASJ for the figures

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The earliest drawings of datable auroras and a two-tail comet from the Syriac Chronicle of Zūqnīn · wovepaper