New light on the supernova from the year 1054
In the year 1054 people around the world spotted a strange new light that shined during the daytime. What they were observing was a supernova.
View ArticleNoel Swerdlow, one of the ‘greatest scholars’ of the history of science,...
Noel M. Swerdlow, a distinguished historian of science and the world’s foremost expert on Ptolemy and Copernicus, died July 24. He was 79.
View ArticleMedieval astronomers saw a supernova in 1181, researchers find
A 900-year-old cosmic mystery surrounding the origins of a famous supernova first spotted over China in the year 1181 has finally been solved, according to an international team of astronomers.
View ArticleAstronomers use Byzantine chronicles to learn about the Earth’s rotation
Japanese researchers investigated Byzantine texts from the 4th to 7th centuries to identify five total solar eclipses near the Eastern Mediterranean and improve the model of the Earth's rotation over...
View ArticleResearcher discovers another astronomy book written by Galileo Galilei
An Italian historian has discovered that an early 17th-century treatise on astronomy was actually written by Galileo Galilei under a pseudonym. He hid his name to avoid being caught up in a public...
View ArticleLost ancient astronomical text discovered hidden in medieval manuscript
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus wrote a star catalogue between the years 170 and 120 BC - however, the astronomical text has been lost for centuries. This has now changed, as a team of researchers has...
View ArticleNew Medieval Books: Wonders and Rarities
This book introduces us to the life and works of Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī, a 13th-century scholar from Iran. He wrote about the cosmos and the geography of the world, producing an influential book known as...
View ArticleSearching for comets in Late Medieval manuscripts
The observation and representation of comets has intertwined the history of art and science since ancient times.
View ArticleMedieval astrolabe reveals cross-cultural scientific exchange
Medieval astrolabes are seen as one of the great examples of medieval science. A new article reveals how one of these artifacts from the 11th century bears both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions making it...
View ArticleHow medieval people described solar eclipses
Solar eclipses are one of our most remarkable episodes of natural phenomena. This was true as well in the Middle Ages, which are told in ten accounts from around the medieval world.
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