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Astronomers Have Found the Stars Responsible For an Explosion Recorded By Korean Astronomers in 1437 AD (theatlantic.com)

Posted by msmash on from the unravelling-mysteries dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: On the night of March 11, 1437 A.D., in what is now modern-day Seoul, a new star appeared in the sky, seemingly out of nowhere. The newcomer shone for 14 days before fading into the darkness. Korean astronomers noted the mysterious star and its brief stint in the sky in their records. Centuries later, modern astronomers studying these records determined that what the Koreans had seen was a cosmic explosion called a nova. Novae occur in two-star systems, when a dead star, known as a white dwarf, starts eating away at its companion, a star like our sun. The white dwarf slowly builds a layer of hydrogen stolen from the other star over tens of thousands of years, and then ejects it all at once, producing an eruption of light 300,000 times brighter than the sun that can last for weeks. Michael Shara and his researcher colleagues have spent the last nearly 30 years looking for the star responsible for this nova. In a new paper published Wednesday in Nature, they say they've finally found it. "It's been like searching for a needle in a billion haystacks," Shara said. For most of their search, Shara, a curator in the American Museum of Natural History's department of astrophysics; Richard Stephenson, a historian of ancient astronomical records at Durham University; and Mike Bode, an astrophysicist at Liverpool John Moores University, focused on a part of the sky where they suspected the mystery star must lurk. The investigation was an on-again, off-again effort of "failure after failure after failure," one that they returned to when they had the time or a lead. Last year, Shara found some relevant files in his office that he hadn't looked at in nearly a decade, and decided to expand the search area in the sky. He started combing through digital databases of stars, looking for any interesting targets. In one astronomical catalog, he saw a well-known planetary nebula, a glowing shell of gas and dust. In a different catalog, he found an image of a binary star taken in 2016 in the same area. Then it hit him: That wasn't a planetary nebula. It was the leftover shell of a nova explosion, floating near the star system that produced it.

39 comments

  1. Likely cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was likely the immortal soul of Dear Leader Kim Jong Un making its way towards earth to rule us now and forever with infinite wisdom and strength. He will cleanse our souls with nuclear hellfire and the world will gently kneel before him and pledge unending obedience.

    1. Re:Likely cause by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Little Kim is a big ball of burring gas...

      Pumba, with you everything is gas...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  2. oh my god this is so important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we have to 3D print a warp drive starship so we can mine the precious helium 3 for our moon fusion reactor colonies!!!

    1. Re:oh my god this is so important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's even more important than that!

    2. Re:oh my god this is so important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for sharing your monumenteous insight with us. We can now continue our life in the knowledge that we have been blessed, no matter what will happen next.

      /s

  3. Interesting the only record is in Korea by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now, it didn't last long and was a long time ago. Records from other places may just have been lost over time.

    1. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      north or South Korea?

    2. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      Mid-West Korea.

    3. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Interesting the only record is in Korea

      I wondered about how there's no record from Europe, but it turns out that the southern part of Scorpius where it appeared is apparently not very well visible from Europe. The declination is -43 degrees.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting the only record is in Korea

      I wondered about how there's no record from Europe, but it turns out that the southern part of Scorpius where it appeared is apparently not very well visible from Europe. The declination is -43 degrees.

      The Korean peninsula is at the latitude of Europe.

    5. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've just checked it in Stellarium. Seoul is approximately at 37,5 degrees north and the star in question was visible in it (slightly above the horizon, though) around the date in question in early morning hours. That's roughly where Athens are. Yet Athens were hardly the astronomical center of Europe in the first half of the 15th century. Rome is barely suitable and anything significantly more to the north is completely out of luck. Sadly, that's *exactly* where major knowledge (and astronomical) centers like Paris or Prague were (maybe except for Bologna).

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Korea extends up to the 42nd parallel. Seoul is exactly at the latitude of Sagres, Portugal, *the* astronomical research hub at the time.

    7. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1
      Sagres, Portugal was "*the* astronomical research hub at the time"? It's funny how it's completely unknown in common literature, then. The only thing I seem to be able to find is this:

      The statement that in order to implement his program of maritime discovery, Prince Henry of Portugal (1394—1460) had founded at Sagres in the early fifteenth century a nautical school to which he attracted experts in astronomy, navigation and cartography, has appeared in recent works published in connection with the quincentenary of Columbus' first voyage. The assertion has already for long been the subject of heated controversy among Portuguese historians of which the best and most authoritative have amassed respectable evidence to show that no such institution ever existed.

      Or are you referring to some other institution?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:Interesting the only record is in Korea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There were no significant Observatories in Europe at that time; Europe was a mess. Half of the population was dead due to frequent outbreaks of Plague and the 100 Year War. Rome was still in rubble from the Great Earthquake of 1349.
      The Great Observatories were in the Middle East and China.

      Of note is the Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand, at a Latitude of 39d40'. 1437 was an important year there; as they were updating the old Ilkhanic Tables and the Zj-i Sultn Star Catalog, and they had satellite Observatories to the South. The last English translations were in 1843, and they have pretty much been forgotten since. They may be worth a glance or two again.
      The main portions of the Observatory, including the 40 Meter radius Quadrant, (Wikipedia has it wrong when they describe it as a Sextant...), were destroyed by Religious Nutters in 1449.
      There is also the Gaocheng Astronomical Observatory at 34d29' in China, which is far enough South that Nova Scorpii 1437 would have been more clearly visible than in Seoul.

  4. I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story... by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...whenever I read about a nova and how people perceived it in the past.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_%28Clarke_short_story%29

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  5. arXiv pre-print of the paper here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Only the abstract of the paper and a few figures are included at the Nature link (unless you pay $199 for an annual subscription, of course).

    A pre-print of the paper, including the figures and full captions, is at arXiv here:

    https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.00086

    1. Re:arXiv pre-print of the paper here by careysub · · Score: 1

      Of course you can get the actual published version using SciHub and its DOI: 10.1038/nature23644

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  6. Cool stuff! by PmanAce · · Score: 1

    I crack myself up.

    --
    Tired of my customary (Score:1)
  7. A thought occurrs by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    OMG they should name it Starcraft II.

  8. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Virus Warning! WannaCry virus in the above link!

    Here's the DIRECT LINK rinsed of any personal information!

    PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY BY NOT CLICKING ON CREIMER'S LINKS!!

  9. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    I had forgotten that story. Thanks for the reminder, I need to go back and read it again.

  10. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    I thought it was weird that he'd post a link to such a famous, easy-to-find story.

    Thank you.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  11. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I thought it was weird that he'd post a link to such a famous, easy-to-find story.

    I found it weird that Wikipedia didn't mentioned what collection to find the short story. Then again, Arthur C. Clarke is no Ray Bradbury and didn't write that many short stories.

  12. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    WannaCry doesn't infect Linux, moron. :-p

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  13. Make one mistake... by gillbates · · Score: 1

    So I made one mistake, and 580 years later, someone finds a bug in my code. Thanks a lot, Korea!

    --
    The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
  14. So what do we get from this? by gfxguy · · Score: 0

    I love science, I love astronomy, I love learning about our universe.... but what does finding this particular star really get us? I'm not being facetious, here. Proof of what they saw? And researchers spend years finding stuff like this, but I don't see benefits - "It's been like searching for a needle in a billion haystacks," and for what?

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
    1. Re:So what do we get from this? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. And they really can't prove it either. They can guess it is likely the same one, but it is just a guess.

    2. Re:So what do we get from this? by habig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Now that the system is ID'd with an exact start time, studies of the system as it is today are way more useful, since we now exactly how long it took to get from the explody bit to the debris as it's seen today. Let's you test your models of what goes on in such a system far more rigorously.

    3. Re:So what do we get from this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It validates that those observers, at that time, were accurately describing events. Thus anything else that they mention now has more credibility. Maybe they wrote about things at the same time that were not astronomy related, like politics or other technology. They might be considered more authoritative now, bumping another idea out.

    4. Re:So what do we get from this? by habig · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Oh, and a a different concrete example is given in TFA:

      Shara found that the star system responsible for the nova in 1437 A.D. shows dwarf novae in photos from the 1930s and 1940s, which supports his claim that both phenomena originate from a single source.

      So: confirmation of an idea about how this system might work, shows that novae and dwarf novae are closely related.

  15. Fake news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's based on science.

    1. Re:Fake news by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... :^)

      --
      Rick B.
  16. Re: I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This gets modded down but blatant fucking affiliate spam doesn't? Fuck you slashdot.

  17. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Virus Warning! WannaCry virus in the above link!

    Here's the DIRECT LINK rinsed of any personal information!

    PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY BY NOT CLICKING ON CREIMER'S LINKS!!

    Putting a poisoned link deliberately is a banning offense, I think everyone would agree.

  18. Re: I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    There's definitely a problem here.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  19. Re:I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Funny

    Arthur C. Clarke is no Ray Bradbury

    For which readers of Arthur C. Clarke are grateful.

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