Related papers: Are Supernovae Recorded in Indigenous Astronomical…
Studies in Australian Indigenous astronomical knowledge reveal few accounts of the visible planets in the sky. However, what information we do have tells us that Aboriginal people were close observers of planets and their motions, noting…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical knowledge includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, which is usually reported in terms of songs or stories associated with stars and constellations. Here we argue that the astronomical components…
Descriptions of cosmic impacts and meteorite falls are found throughout Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. In some cases, these texts describe the impact event in detail, sometimes citing the location, suggesting that the events were…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical component includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in…
For more than 50,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated celestial events into their oral traditions and used the motions of celestial bodies for navigation, time-keeping, food economics, and social structure. In this paper, we…
Descriptions of natural events, such as fireballs and meteorite impacts, are found within Indigenous Australian oral traditions. Studies of oral traditions demonstrate that they extend beyond the realm of myth and legend; they contain…
Of the hundreds of distinct Aboriginal cultures of Australia, many have oral traditions rich in descriptions and explanations of comets, meteors, meteorites, airbursts, impact events, and impact craters. These views generally attribute…
Parts of Australia have been privileged to see dazzling lights in the night sky as the Aurora Australis (known as the southern lights) puts on a show this year. Aurorae are significant in Australian Indigenous astronomical traditions.…
Transient celestial phenomena feature prominently in the astronomical knowledge and traditions of Aboriginal Australians. In this paper, I collect accounts of the Aurora Australis from the literature regarding Aboriginal culture. Using…
Traditional Aboriginal Australian cultures include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition and ceremony. This knowledge has practical navigational and calendrical functions, and sometimes extends to a deep…
A number of unsolved problems and open questions about the nature and the properties of supernovae are identified and briefly discussed. Some suggestions and directions toward possible solutions are also considered.
The supernova explosion of 1054 AD, which originated the Crab Nebula and Pulsar, is probably the astronomical event which has been most deeply studied by means of historical sources. However, many mysteries and inconsistencies, both among…
Novae, which are the sudden visual brightening triggered by runaway thermonuclear burning on the surface of an accreting white dwarf, are fairly common and bright events. Despite their astronomical significance as nearby laboratories for…
Early ethnographers and missionaries recorded Aboriginal languages and oral traditions across Australia. Their general lack of astronomical training resulted in misidentifications, transcription errors, and omissions in these records.…
Aboriginal Australians carefully observe the properties and positions of stars, including both overt and subtle changes in their brightness, for subsistence and social application. These observations are encoded in oral tradition. I examine…
The oral traditions of Aboriginal cultures across Australia contain references to the presence of multiple Suns in the sky at the same time. Explanations of this have been largely regarded as symbolic or mythological, rather than…
Indigenous Australian practices, developed and honed over thousands of years, weave science with storytelling. In this Indigenous science series, we'll look at different aspects of First Australians' traditional life and uncover the…
Observational astronomy has shown significant growth over the last decade and has made important contributions to cosmology. A major paradigm shift in cosmology was brought about by observations of Type Ia supernovae. The notion that the…
The extreme luminosity and their fairly unique temporal behaviour have made supernovae a superb tool to measure distances in the universe. As complex astrophysical events they provide interesting insights into explosion physics, explosive…