Related papers: The explanation of eclipses in Greco-Roman antiqui…
According to classical tradition, Thales of Miletus predicted the total solar eclipse that took place on 28 May 585 BCE. Even if some authors have flatly denied the possibility of such a prediction, others have struggled to find cycles…
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model of how the cycles of astronomical…
A model based on celestial geometry and atmospheric physics predicts the dimming and the color of lunar eclipses. Corresponding visual magnitudes and color indices for eclipses from year 2000 through 2050 are listed. The enlargement of the…
The solar luminosity in the visible changes at the 10-3 level, following an 11 years period. In X-rays, which should not be there, the amplitude varies 100000 times stronger, making their mysterious origin since the discovery in 1938 even…
In a classic 1982 paper in this journal, Jean Meeus used a statistical approach for finding the mean frequency of a total and an annular eclipse of the Sun at a given place on the surface of the Earth. In this current paper we tackle the…
For many decades scholars converse how to correctly include the Old Babylonian Empire into the absolute timeline of history. A cuneiform text from the series Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE #20) reports on the destruction of Babylon after a lunar and…
The so-called solar cycle is generally characterized by the quasi-periodic oscillatory evolution of the photospheric spots number. This quasi-periodic pattern has always been an intriguing question. Several physical models were proposed to…
The obscuration of a celestial body that covers another one in the background will be called a ``hierarchical eclipse''. The most obvious case is that a star or a planet will be hidden from sight by the moon during a lunar eclipse. Four…
The solar magnetic field, thought to be generated by the motion of plasma within the Sun, alternates on the order of 11-year cycles and is incompletely understood. Industries rely on accurate forecasts of solar activity, but can solar…
We explore 50 Australian Aboriginal accounts of lunar and solar eclipses to determine how Aboriginal groups understood this phenomenon. We summarise the literature on Aboriginal references to eclipses, showing that many Aboriginal groups…
The possible discovery of astronomical effects due to precession - such as the shift in the declination of heliacal raising of bright stars or the precession of the equinoxes - is reviewed for various ancient cultures in the world. Although…
Solar eclipses, as rare astronomical events, often evoke a profound sense of wonder and awe within the human spirit. However, for ordinary people, the extremely short preparation time, a few hours of notice from friends or social media, and…
The recently shown two premises (Gurzadyan 2000), i.e. the absence of 56/64 year Venus cycle constraints, at the importance of the 8-year cycle in the Venus Tablet, stimulated new studies on the Chronology of the Ancient Near East (2nd…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
The physical basis of chaos in the solar system is now better understood: in all cases investigated so far, chaotic orbits result from overlapping resonances. Perhaps the clearest examples are found in the asteroid belt. Overlapping…
This article reviews atmospheric changes associated with 44 solar eclipses, beginning with the first quantitative results available, from 1834 (earlier qualitative, accounts also exist). Eclipse meteorology attracted relatively few…
The total lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025 UT occurs nearly exactly 521 years (one Hypersaros) after a similar eclipse on March 1, 1504 UT that is renowned for its importance to the voyage of Columbus to Jamaica. Eclipses separated by a…
Ptolemy's model of the Moon's motion implied that its distance varies by nearly a factor of two, implying that its angular size should also vary by nearly a factor of two. We present an analysis of 100 naked eye observations of the Moon's…
When we are fortunate enough to view an exoplanetary system nearly edge-on, the star and planet periodically eclipse each other. Observations of eclipses (transits and occultations) provide a bonanza of information that cannot be obtained…
In a recent article by Scafetta, 2010, the author investigates whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. In particular, the author note that several global surface temperature records,…