"The night there are five colors of light through the purple micro, the sky cracked in the northeast" - history of ancient astronomical anomalies observation

The aurora borealis is a brilliant and colorful physical phenomenon in high altitude, and in the ancient West, around the sixth century B.C., there were already accounts of phenomena that could be regarded as aurora borealis. Sometimes they could undoubtedly recognize this celestial phenomenon correctly, calling it a "rare view" or a "crack" in the sky, but at other times it was mixed up with meteors or comets, a phenomenon that lasted until the seventeenth century. A similar situation existed in ancient China, where the naming of the aurora borealis clearly followed the names of meteors and comets in some cases.

However, this was not the most important form of description of the aurora phenomenon by the Chinese, who used more visual descriptions of the aurora, such as red light, golden light, heavenly redness, heavenly openness, heavenly cracks, or used the word "qi" to express the characteristics of the aurora. Since the aurora is the light produced by the high altitude atmosphere excited by the charged particles, and the red gas is the gas that emits red light, and the purple gas is the gas that emits purple light, therefore, even from today's point of view, this terminology is also more scientific. From the Western Han Dynasty onwards, the concept of "qi" has become more and more common over time.

In the view of the ancients, the phenomenon of the aurora borealis, like comets and other strange celestial phenomena, was a sign of good or bad luck, which makes one wonder about the authenticity of many aurora borealis records of a fairly early age, because they are always associated with the birth of saints or the fall of dynasties. The earliest Chinese record of the aurora borealis can be considered to be an entry in the Ancient Bamboo Book of Records, which takes the form of a description of light of a certain color.

This was a spectacular sight of five colors of light across the sky area of the Ziwei Wall, and coincidentally, shortly after the aurora appeared, King Zhao of the Zhou Dynasty was buried at the bottom of the river in his southern expedition to Jingchu. The date of this aurora is not yet easy to determine, but according to astronomical and historical research, I am afraid there is no problem that it occurred around the middle of the 10th century B.C. The only thing that is disturbing is that the aurora is not a very bright one. The only disturbing thing is that the word "Ziwei" appears in the record, which seems to leave traces of a later recollection.

An aurora that occurred in 193 BC may be the earliest reliable record. Tianwen Zhi" cloud:

filial piety Hui two years, the sky open northeast, wide more than ten zhang, long more than twenty zhang. The earth is moving, the yin has a surplus; the sky is cracking, the yang is not enough. All of them are under the full grown will harm the change of the upper.

But this record is far less vivid than the record of an aurora that occurred in the 14th year of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty (166 BC).

The Book of Han?

The Zhao Xin Yuan Ping to look at the gas to see the upper, said, "Changan northeast of the divine gas, into five colors, such as the human crown".

This text makes clear the location, color, and even type of aurora. Ancient Chinese aurora records in the eighteenth century before about nearly 300 times, and until the tenth century it is still in the number of leading. Although the ancients made a wonderful written expression of the phenomenon of the aurora, but because of the complexity of the aurora, and thus promote the people had to resort to more graphic color paintings to record this kind of celestial phenomenon.

This attempt may have been early, but what is available today is a set of atlases from the fifteenth century depicting a wide variety of so-called "gas" phenomena, some of which are so accurate that they can be compared to modern photographs of the aurora borealis. Since it is unlikely that one person will see all types of auroras in one lifetime, it is clear that such an atlas reflects a history of observation that spans at least a few generations, if not more.

The study of auroras is related to important scientific topics such as solar activity, geomagnetic changes, and the study of the upper atmosphere. After 1859, people began to recognize the close relationship between sunspots and auroras, which means that the collation and study of ancient auroral records may become an important way to explore the history of solar activity, climate change, geomagnetic changes, and other natural laws. For the study of these aspects, the rich auroral record of ancient China is unique.

The celestial pole includes the north and south poles of the celestial sphere, but in the ancient Chinese people have not yet observed the starry sky near the South Pole, the celestial pole of course, they can only refer to the celestial North Pole.

Although the North Pole slowly moves in a circle around the yellow pole under the action of the age difference, the North Pole has long been regarded as a fixed and unchanging fixed point before people failed to understand the age difference. Lu Shi Chun Qiu? "The pole star travels with the sky and the celestial pole does not move." The celestial pole mentioned here is actually the north pole of the celestial sphere. The pole star is the nearest star to the celestial pole, which may fall on the pole of the North Pole. If there is no star at the North Pole, then one has to choose the star that is closest to the North Pole and has the most astronomical significance as the pole star.

Considering the fact that the early Chinese astronomers paid attention to the observation of elephants, the pole star was initially identified as a group of stars, not a single star. Today's astronomical archaeological research shows that the Big Dipper served as the pole star for a long period of time in ancient times. From the analysis of the history of the development of astronomical observation, it is obvious that the use of the Big Dipper as the pole star is closely related to the people's work of understanding the celestial pole. In fact, the North Pole is only a hypothetical point in the center of the northern sky that is fixed and immobile, and its position can only be determined through the observation of the pole star in any case.

Northern Song Xining five years (1072), Shen Kuo once used a peephole to try to find the real celestial pole, he first used a peephole to look at the sky, initially, he could see through the peephole in the star soon moved out of the field of view, so he will gradually enlarge the peephole, until the pole star only in the peephole to move without disappearing, so that the true celestial pole of the position will be determined down. Cai Yong in the Eastern Han Dynasty in his related documents in fact, there have long been similar records of the observation of the celestial pole. This fact tells us, in order to accurately determine the immovable point in the north sky, without the help of the corresponding instrument is difficult to do. This means that in the ancient people have not yet invented instruments that can help them to determine the celestial pole, the true celestial pole focus on a point of work is not easy, the best way to zoom in on the position of the celestial pole, so that it is from a point to expand into a region, and the delineation of this region can only be through the closest to the North Pole at that time and act as the main star of the timing of the completion of the star, such a star of course, can only be the Big Dipper.

Because of the age difference, the position of the Big Dipper was very close to the true celestial pole around the fourth millennium BC, and its arching motion was planning the celestial pole, which made it the pole star at that time as a matter of course. The establishment of the equatorial coordinate system in traditional Chinese astronomy depended on the identification of the celestial North Pole, so the observation of the celestial pole was in fact of primary importance in a large and complex astronomical system. Ancient people's understanding of the celestial pole is directly related to their continuous observation of the Big Dipper, which is the only effective means of understanding the celestial pole. The circular area of the sky located in the center of the North Pole, which was planned by the movement of the Big Dipper around the pole, was called "XuanXin" by the ancients.

Xuan Gui was considered in ancient cosmology to be a place of absolute darkness centered on the North Pole and with a central bulge.

Xuan Gui is considered to be the center of the ancient cosmology.