Historical astronomy is the science of analysing historic

astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...

data. The

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

(AAS), established 1899, states that its Historical Astronomy Division "...shall exist for the purpose of advancing interest in topics relating to the historical nature of astronomy. By historical astronomy we include the

history of astronomy The history of astronomy focuses on the contributions civilizations have made to further their understanding of the universe beyond earth's atmosphere. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences, achieving a high level of success in the sec ...

; what has come to be known as

archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultur ...

; and the application of historical records to modern astrophysical problems.

Historical and ancient observations are used to track theoretically long term trends, such as Eclipse#Historical record, eclipse patterns and the velocity of nebular clouds

Conversely, using known and well documented phenomenological activity, historical astronomers apply computer models to verify the validity of ancient observations, as well as Astronomical chronology, dating such observations and documents which would otherwise be unknown.

Examples

* One example of such study would be the

Crab Nebula The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. The common name comes from a drawing that somewhat resembled a crab with arm ...

, which is the remains of a

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

of July 1054, the SN 1054. During the Northern

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

in China, a historical astronomical record was written, which lists unusual phenomena observed in the night sky. The event was also recorded by Japanese and Arab astronomers. Scholars often associate this with the formation of the Crab Nebula. * Secondly, The

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

employed this science to deduce that three

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

s that appeared roughly 76 years apart were in fact the same object. * Similarly, the

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...

was found to have been photographed as early as 1915 although it was not recognized until 1930. *

Quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...

s have been photographed since the late 19th century although they were not known to be unusual objects until the 1960s.

References

Katherine Bracher, ''THE HISTORICAL ASTRONOMY DIVISION''
* https://web.archive.org/web/20011019220913/http://star-www.dur.ac.uk/~jms/group.html * Misner, Thorne, Wheeler; ''Gravitation''; 1970

External links

American Astronomical Society

Search Engine for Astronomy
History of astronomy Astronomical sub-disciplines {{astronomy-stub

Examples

See also

References

External links