The oldest recognized map of the sky, a part of the Hipparchus Catalog – The Wire Science

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Hipparchus. Photograph: creator unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public area


  • Elements of the well-known Hipparchus star catalogue, the oldest recognized map of the sky, have been discovered hidden beneath medieval Christian texts from Egypt.
  • The manuscript was a palimpsest – a parchment that was cleaned of outdated textual content to be reused. The older textual content was additionally thought of the primary Christian writing.
  • The esoteric passage describes the size and breadth of the Corona Borealis constellation and offers coordinates for the celebrities at its excessive north, south, east and west.

New Delhi: Elements of the well-known Hipparchus star catalog, the oldest recognized map of the sky, have been found hidden beneath medieval Christian texts from Egypt – a growth that has been described as “uncommon” and “outstanding”.

The findings had been decided in a paper printed in Journal of the Historical past of Astronomy, nature information Stated catalog was discovered hidden in a Palimpsest manuscript – a parchment that had been cleaned of outdated textual content for reuse. Its report states, “This manuscript got here from the Greek Orthodox St. Catherine’s Monastery within the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, however most of its 146 leaves or folios at the moment are owned by the Bible Museum in Washington DC.”

Rewritten manuscript, known as . is named Codex Climasi Rescriptus, It incorporates a set of Syriac texts written within the tenth or eleventh century AD. The older writings additionally included Christian writings, however a number of years earlier, evaluation revealed that 9 folios contained astronomical materials that was in all probability written within the fifth or sixth century AD.

The newest discovery is {that a} page-long surviving passage was written by Hipparchus, which describes the size and width of the constellation Corona Borealis and offers coordinates for the celebrities at its excessive north, south, east and west.

Hipparchus printed the primary complete star catalog within the 2nd century BC, mapping the positions of 850 stars with the assistance of only a sight-tube.dioptra) astrolabe and a mechanism known as the Armillary Sphere. It was used for hundreds of years however was misplaced way back.

Describing the significance of Hipparchus’ listing, nature information mentioned that their efforts “marked a pivotal second within the beginning of science, when astronomers moved from describing noticed patterns within the sky to measuring and predicting them”.

St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt, the place the manuscript got here from. Photograph: Mark Rickert/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

new innovations

It was a pupil of biblical scholar Peter Williams on the College of Cambridge who made the preliminary discovery that some pages of the ebook forfeiture It beforehand contained astronomical materials. Willims was “taking note of the pictures in the course of the coronavirus lockdown” when he seen “one thing extra uncommon”, in line with Nature,

When this page-long passage was deciphered by historian Victor Gisemberg on the French Nationwide Scientific Analysis Middle CNRS in Paris and his colleague Emmanuel Zingag on the Sorbonne College in Paris, they discovered that it describes the constellation Corona Borealis, or the northern crown, And the celebrities round it.

Within the paper, the researchers supplied a simplified transcription and translation of the related sections, which they consider had been written by Hipparchus. It mentioned:

“Corona Borealis, situated within the Northern Hemisphere, extends from the first diploma of Scorpius to 10°¼ in the identical quantity (ie in Scorpius) to 9°¼ in size. In width it extends from 49° to 55°¾ from the North Pole. extends as much as 6°¾.

Inside it, the star (β CrB) is subsequent (i.e. first to rise) to the brighter one (α CrB) to the west, Scorpius at 0.5°. The fourth star (ι CrB) to the east of the brilliant (α CrB) is the final (ie rising) [. . .] 49° from the North Pole. The southernmost (δ CrB) is the third rely from the brightest (α CrB) to the east, which is 55°¾ from the north pole.”

In accordance with nature informationProof factors to Hipparchus because the supply as a result of among the knowledge have been expressed in an unknown method, and which consultants had been capable of date primarily based on the “accuracy of the traditional astronomer’s measurements”.

The researchers had been additionally ready to make use of precession – a phenomenon during which the Earth slowly rotates about one diploma on its axis each 72 years, thus progressively shifting the positions of ‘stationary’ stars within the sky – that To test when the traditional astronomer ought to have made his observations. He discovered that the coordinates match round 129 BC, on the time Hipparchus was working, nature information Informed. Because it occurs, Hipparchus was the one who found the precession of the Earth.

Within the summary, the paper’s authors wrote: “This new proof is probably the most authoritative so far and permits nice progress within the reconstruction of Hipparchus’s star catalogue. Specifically, it confirms that the star catalog was initially from equatorial coordinates.” was made in.”

He famous that the obtainable numerical proof corresponds to accuracy to inside 1° of true stellar coordinates, which might make Hipparchus’s catalog considerably extra correct than that of his successor, Claudius Ptolemy—the one star catalog that has survived from antiquity to the second. After being compiled in Alexandria, Egypt within the century AD.

In accordance with NatureResearchers consider that Hipparchus’s authentic catalog would have included observations of almost each seen star within the sky.

James Evans, historian of astronomy on the College of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, advised Nature That discovery “enriches our image” of Hipparchus. “It offers us an enchanting glimpse into precisely what they did” and “the mathematization of nature”.

The report states that Hipparchus mixed Babylonian information with the Greek geometric strategy to create correct observational and mathematical strategies to mannequin and predict the timing of occasions comparable to lunar eclipses, marking the start of recent astronomy.

Awaiting extra discoveries?

In accordance with Nature, the researchers hope that as imaging methods enhance, extra palimpsests will likely be found and interpreted. “many elements” Codex Climasi Rescriptus Not decrypted but. It is usually attainable that extra pages of the Star Catalog could have survived within the St. Catherine’s Library, which incorporates greater than 160 palimpsests. Efforts to learn these have already revealed unknown Unani medical texts, together with drug recipes, surgical directions and a information to medicinal crops,” the report mentioned.

Multispectral imaging of the palimpsest is “opening up a wealthy new seam of historic texts” in archives all over the world, Nature Informed. “In Europe alone, there are actually 1000’s of palimpsests in main libraries,” Gisemberg says. “It is only a case, it’s totally thrilling, of a analysis chance that may be utilized to 1000’s of manuscripts with wonderful discoveries every time.”

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