相关论文: Babylonian and Indian Astronomy: Early Connections

While obviously having a common root, solar and planetary dynamo theory have taken increasingly divergent routes in the last two or three decades, and there are probably few experts now who can claim to be equally versed in both.…

Just fourteen years ago the Solar System represented the only known planetary system in the Galaxy, and conceptions of planet formation were shaped by this sample of one. Since then, 320 planets have been discovered orbiting 276 individual…

Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…

Stars are mostly found in binary and multiple systems, as at least 50% of all solar-like stars have companions - a fraction that goes up to 100% for the most massive stars. Moreover, a large fraction of them will interact in some way or…

Habitability varies dramatically with location and time in the universe. This was recognized centuries ago, but it was only in the last few decades that astronomers began to systematize the study of habitability. The introduction of the…

The stellar astronomy has always been considered the fundamental source of knowledge about the basic building blocks of the universe - the stars. It has proved correctness of many physical theories - like e.g. the idea of nuclear fusion in…

In a recent paper Sule et al. (Astronomical Notes, vol. 332 (2011), 655) argued that an early 17th-century Indian mural of the constellation Sagittarius with a dragon-headed tail indicated that the bright supernova of 1604 was also sighted…

The Indo-aryans of ancient India observed stars and constellations for ascertaining auspicious times in order to conduct sacrificial rites ordained by vedas. It is but natural that they would have recounted in the vedic texts about comets.…

The modern usage of the words astronomy and astrology is traced back to distinctions, largely ignored in recent scholarship. Three interpretations of celestial phenomena (in a geometric, a substantialist and a prognostic versions) coexisted…

Some tests of gravity theories - periastron shift, geodetic precession, change in mean motion and gravitational redshift - are applied in solar and stellar systems to constrain the cosmological constant. We thus consider a length scale…

There has been a long standing debate about the existence of maya constellations, but there are several sources of evidences that favour this hypothesis: mural paintings, stelae and codex. In this work, we have recovered and compiled…

The family of Tibetan lunisolar calendars operates on a shared arithmetic axiom (67 lunar months = 65 solar months) that provides a rigid structure but causes observable seasonal drift. This study deconstructs the calendar through a…

Bars are ubiquitous morphological features in the observed distribution of galaxies. There are similarly many methods for classifying these features and, without a strict theoretical definition or common standard practice, this is often…

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…

This short monograph is devoted to different historical calendars prevalent in India from ancient times. They are classified and described with astronomical and historical details. Relationship of the calendrical elements to modern…

The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…

Cultural astronomy reveals ways in which perception and culture have shaped the interpretation of the night sky.

The changing heavens have played a central role in the scientific effort of astronomers for centuries. Galileo's synoptic observations of the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus starting in 1610, provided strong refutation of Ptolemaic…

This paper, third in the series on Indian tradition of physics, describes conceptions of the cosmos with ideas that are clearly spelt out in texts such as Yoga Vasishtha.In particular, the conception of multiple universes that occurs often…

We outline the priority of high quality data of astronomical content as our strategy for the analysis of the ancient astronomical records in the search of the absolute chronology of the Near East in II millennium BC. The correspondingly…