Related papers: Comets in ancient India
We report on a study of the time sequence for the appearance of high-velocity jets and equatorial tori in the transition of stars from the asymptotic giant branch to the planetary nebulae phase. Jets and tori are prominent features of this…
The $\delta$-Cancrid meteoroid stream forms four active meteor showers which are observable on the Earth annually during January-February and August-September. The stream's definite parent comet has not been established. We performed a…
Vishaps, or dragon stones, are prehistoric stelae discovered in the high-altitude mountainous regions of modern-day Armenia and adjacent regions. The first statistical analysis of their elevation distribution and size reveals that their…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
Questions regarding how primordial or pristine the comets of the solar system are have been an ongoing controversy. In this review, we describe comets' physical evolution from dust and ice grains in the solar nebula to the contemporary…
In the past, the Arabs in Al-Hara Zone used many stars to deduce the seasons of the year and also to deduce the roads, at that time this was the most convenient way to figure their ways and to know the time of the year they have to travel…
The great Vishnu temple at Angkor Wat in north-central Kampuchea (Cambodia) is known to have been built according to an astronomical plan. In this note we show that the little-understood solar formula of the temple is identical to the one…
Here, I test the long-held assumption that the ancient Egyptian sky goddess Nut represented the Milky Way by examining Nut's visual depictions on ancient Egyptian coffins. I assemble a catalog of 555 coffin elements, including 118…
A vast majority of bright comets between the late 2nd century and the early 18th century, moving in potentially Kreutz orbits according to Hasegawa & Nakano (2001), was first sighted between 2 and 16 days after perihelion, thanks to the…
New insights into the history of C/1843 D1 and C/1882 R1, the two celebrated Kreutz sungrazers, are provided by assessing evidence on their appearance at the previous perihelion return, known as X/1106 C1 and the Chinese comet of 1138 (Ho's…
Sunspots have been known in the West since Galileo Galilei and Thomas Harriot first used telescopes to observe the Sun nearly four centuries ago; they have been known to the Chinese for more than two thousand years. They appear as…
Novae and supernovae are rare astronomical events that would have had an influence on the sky-watching peoples who witnessed them. Although several bright novae/supernovae have been visible during recorded human history, there are many…
We analyze findings of the Stardust mission that brought to the Earth dust from the 81P/Wild 2 coma. Just as the data of the Deep Impact mission to 9P/Tempel 1, they are at odds with the widely accepted condensation/sublimation comet…
Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…
The Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), a premier autonomous research institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has a legacy of about seven decades with contributions made in…
Intersection with the debris of a large (50-100 km) short-period comet during the Upper Palaeolithic provides a satisfactory explanation for the catastrophe of celestial origin which has been postulated to have occurred around 12900 BP, and…
This paper expounds very innovative results achieved between the mid-14th century and the beginning of the 16th century by Indian astronomers belonging to the so-called "M\=adhava school". These results were in keeping with researches in…
Synonymy is a widespread yet puzzling linguistic phenomenon. Absolute synonyms theoretically should not exist, as they do not expand language's expressive potential. However, it was suggested that even if synonyms denote the same concept,…
The indigenous astronomy in Africa and of Africans exhibits many of the same patterns as indigenous astronomy found in other parts of the world such as with agricultural calendars established by observing celestial bodies as well as other…
The K\=aty\=ayana \'Sulvasutra has been much less studied or discussed from a modern perspective, even though the first English translation of two adhy\=ayas (chapters) from it, by Thibaut, appeared as far back as 1882. Part of the reason…