Oldest Sky Chart found of Supernova 5,000 yrs. ago

[packman]

Astrophysicist Mayank Vahia and his colleagues at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research believe a rock painting found in what is today part of the Kashmir region of south Asia is the oldest record of a supernova and likely the oldest sky chart ever drawn. The artwork shows two bright objects in the sky, with figures of animals and humans underneath.

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(A)... database gave Vahia just one option: supernova HB9. It seemed to have all the right characteristics. It exploded around 3600 BC, and it’s about 2,600 light years away. At the time of its explosion, it would have appeared to Earthlings as a glowing ball (though not perfectly round) and just a little less bright than a full moon.

There’s even better proof to be found when you look more closely at the artwork. The figures underneath the supernova and the moon on the rock painting aren’t part of a hunting scene, as it might seem at first glance. Instead, Vahia’s analysis shows they neatly fit the constellations that surrounded the supernova: The man with the bow and arrow on the left is Orion; the stag is Taurus; the man on the right holding a spear is part of Pisces; and the dog is the Andromeda galaxy. In other words, the rock art is likely a sky chart and, if it is, it would be the oldest sky chart on record.


https://qz.com/1171320/5000-year-old-rock-art-found-in-india-is-likely-the-oldest-depiction-of-a-supernova/

[DBoon]

1. Interesting that India in 3600 BC would have Orion and Taurus

The basic constellations must predate history by many thousands of years

[Wounded Bear]

2. Maybe not "many thousands" of years...

we do know that the constellations are changing due to our orbit around the galactic center and the galaxy's motion through the local cluster. They have charts of most constellations and how they have changed and probably will change in the future. Many would be recognizable for a few thousand years before and after present times.

[packman]

4. Aren't the constellations relatively immutable?

Of course the terms "Orion" and "Taurus" are Western labels - The ancient India natives undoubtedly referred to them as some other nomenclature. The changes in star positions in those constellations are, from our viewpoint and our short history on earth, probably not significant - especially over the last 5,000 years.

Now that I said that - Here's a GIF site showing how constellations change over 150,000 years:

https://www.wired.com/2015/03/gifs-show-constellations-transforming-150000-years/


Orion---

[MineralMan]

5. Unlike us today, people used to see the night sky

all the time. The major constellations suggest themselves, and were named and described long, long ago and were taught through oral tradition.

We don't look at the night sky much any more, and when we do, lights around us let us see far less in it. A pity. I remember learning the Summer constellations when I was a child, on camping trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I learned the Winter ones, because I lived in California and could go outdoors at any time.

Many children today, have no idea about constellations. None at all. Neither do their parents, in many cases. We've lost a connection with the sky. More's the pity.

[L. Coyote]

3. Embarrassing. There was a debunked, stupid 1054 supernova craze in American rock art publications.

It embarrassed a lot of amateur scientists. I see some people haven't gotten wind of that episode in the Annuis of Stupid.

They still call this Chaco Canyon NHP site, the first of the craze, the supernova pictograph:



The timing and location of the historical supernova coincided with a crescent moon, thus the inference was made.

[wishstar]

6. I'm not familiar with this supernova stuff, but the hunting figures don't look like constellations

Claims that the rock art hunting scene figures are supposed to represent particular constellations, rather than just the very clear figures of two humans and two animals with sun overhead, seems a far stretch of imagination to me.