Related papers: Eclipses in the Aztec Codices
A Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) is a shocking and sublime experience. In just a week hundreds of millions of Homo Sapiens will attempt to see the 2024 eclipse as it stretches across the North American continent. However, while Homo Sapiens may…
The number of planets in the solar system over the last three centuries has, perhaps surprisingly, been less of a fixed value than one would think it should be. In this paper, we look at the specific case of Vulcan, which was both a planet…
With the same general purposes as Part I of this monograph, we analyze here major events in the history of the Earth, such as the formation of the Earth itself, the origin of life, the great glaciations and the mass extinctions of species,…
The earliest written reference in Indian astronomy to a total solar eclipse is in the Rig Veda where Rishi Atri is said to have demolished the asura Swarbhanu to liberate the Sun from a total solar eclipse. The Rig Veda describes the…
Sunspot catalogs are very useful for studying the solar activity of the recent past. In this context, a catalog covering more than three solar cycles made by the astronomers of the Madrid Astronomical Observatory in Spain (nowadays, the…
The Mayan calendar is proposed to derive from an arithmetical model of naked-eye astronomy. The Palenque and Copan lunar equations, used during the Maya Classic period (200 to 900 AD) are solution of the model and the results are expressed…
If one wants to translate the heliocentric picture of planets moving uniformly on circular orbits about the sun to the perspective of a terrestrial observer, using classical (ancient) geometric means only, one is naturally led to the…
The non-spherical shape of the Sun has been invoked to explain the anomalous precession of Mercury. A brief history of some methods for measuring solar diameter is presented. Archimedes was the first to give upper and lower values for solar…
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…
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 first 100 brightest eclipsing systems from the Small Magellanic Cloud were studied for their period changes. The photometric data from the surveys OGLE-II, OGLE-III, OGLE-IV and MACHO were combined with our new CCD observations obtained…
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…
The growing interest in the "Medieval Climate Anomaly" (MCA) and its possible link to anomalous solar activity has prompted new reconstructions of solar activity based on cosmogenic radionuclides. These proxies however do not sufficiently…
This paper examines the predictions made by Chinese, Muslim and Jesuit astronomers of the eclipse of 21 June 1629 in Beijing, allegedly the event that determined Emperor Chongzhen's resolution to reform the calendar using the Western…
The role of the Polynesian sun god Tagaloa has been studied. The Polynesian characters Maui-tikitiki, Tane and Tiki were related to the sun as well. The solar data of Easter Island are essential indeed. The rongorongo text on the Santiago…
Total solar eclipses (TSEs) offer a unique opportunity to observe the solar atmosphere, detect limb phenomena, and accurately measure the solar radius. Following the TSE in 1733, Wassenius first reported the existence of prominences to the…
The Ancient Egyptians wrote Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days that assigned astronomically influenced prognoses for each day of the year. The best preserved of these calendars is the Cairo Calendar (hereafter CC) dated to 1244--1163 B.C.…
Summer 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the excavation by J.W. Fewkes of the Sun Temple in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado; an ancient ceremonial complex of unknown purpose, prominently located atop a mesa, constructed by the Pueblo…
We present 33 new mid-eclipse times spanning approximately eight years of the eclipsing polar UZ Fornacis. We have used our new observations to test the two-planet model previously proposed to explain the variations in its eclipse times…
This article advances the hypothesis that the heightened eschatological sensitivity evident among the historians writing in the 5th century and its weaker echos in the time of Charlemagne were caused by the irregularities of the the…