Related papers: The Double Eclipse at the Downfall of Old Babylon
Historical records of total solar eclipses provide vital information for computing the rotation of the Earth and understanding its long-term variations by providing data from the time before the modern measurements. While eclipses recorded…
This paper introduces two astronomical methods developed through computational simulation to evaluate the historical dating of ancient astronomical sources. The first identifies a 1151-year planetary cycle based on the recurrence of visible…
When an exoplanet passes behind its host star, we can measure the time of the occultation, its depth, and its color. In this chapter we describe how these observables can be used to deduce physical characteristics of the planet such as its…
We show that the Kepler spacecraft in two-reaction wheel mode of operation is very well suited for the study of eclipsing binary star systems. Continued observations of the Kepler field will provide the most enduring and long-term valuable…
The lunar periods of our moon -- the companion of the Earth -- which date back to the Babylonians until around 600 BCE, are 29.53 days for the synodic, 27.55 days for the anomalistic and 27.21 days for the draconitic month. In this paper we…
Paleoclimate records provide a critical long-term perspective on natural climate variability, essential for understanding contemporary climate change. However, existing paleoclimate proxies lack the spatial-temporal coverage for studying…
Epsilon Aurigae is a complicated binary star that undergoes optical eclipses every 27 years, including the present year. An update is given here on the array of photometric and spectroscopic observations underway, thanks to the eclipse…
We present the discovery and the very first analysis of four stellar systems showing two periods of eclipses, that are the objects classified as doubly eclipsing systems. Some of them were proved to orbit each other thanks to their…
Around the turn of the first Millennium AD, both in Christian polities such as the Byzantine Empire as well as in Buddhist communities such as in Heian Japan, expectations of an end of times emerged. Although based on different religious…
Our research is focused on the missing, but important and necessary Draconic gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism. The three Lunar cycles Sidereal, Synodic and Anomalistic are represented on the Mechanism by correlating the Fragments A and…
The data on the astronomical orientation of the IV dynasty Egyptian pyramids are re-analyzed and it is shown that such data suggest an inverse chronology between the `first` and the `second` Giza pyramid.
The purpose of this note is to explain what is "analytical history", a modular and testable analysis of historical events introduced in a book published in 2002 (Roehner and Syme 2002). Broadly speaking, it is a comparative methodology for…
Asteroids can be eclipsed by other bodies in the Solar System, but no direct observation of an asteroid eclipse has been reported to date. We describe a statistical method to predict an eclipse for an asteroid based on the analysis of the…
In this article we review some key time cycles in ancient Indian astronomy, especially those that have emerged from researches in the past couple of decades expressing knowledge of the changing frame of earth's axis. The article also…
There is a good cause to assert that the Easter Islanders constantly watched Aldebaran and the Pleiades in the past. The Russian scholar Irina K. Fedorova and the American scholar Georgia Lee were the first who contributed significantly to…
Given the renewed scientific interest in lunar exploration missions, complete understanding of lunar near surface environment and its exosphere under different conditions is of paramount importance. Lunar exosphere has been extensively…
Total solar eclipses are not only astronomical spectacles but also great astrophysical laboratories. Their historical records are particularly helpful for assessing the past variability of the Earth's rotation speed. Chinese records played…
Ratios and coefficients are used to simplify calculations. For geometric usage these values also called function values. Like in Egypt also in Babylon such a value system can be shown. The reconstructed calculation sequence, of the Plimpton…
We describe the discovery of a 0.68+0.52 solar mass eclipsing binary (EB) with an 8.4-day orbital period, found through a systematic search of ten fields of the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES). Such long-period low-mass EBs…
The observed eclipsing time variations in post-common-envelope binaries (PCEBs) can be interpreted as potential evidence for massive Jupiter-like planets, or as a result of magnetic activity, leading to quasi-periodic changes in the…