Cover image: Halley's Comet, taken on March 8, 1986, image source: Wikipedia
Guide
In ancient times, the "broom star" was named after its shape and famous for its meaning. Modern science tells us that the "broomstick star" is actually a comet in the sky, which has nothing to do with its meaning. Among the "broom stars", Halley's Comet may be the most "unlucky".
How is it known? Chinese history has recorded the return of Halley's Comet twenty-nine times in a row, why is it not named after China? Can Halley's Comet help us solve the problem of the age of the Martial King?? In this issue of Mr. Astronomy, let's review the history of halley's comet discovery. Yes, it's "coming" back!
Written by | Li Geng (National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Editor-in-charge | Han Yueyang, Lü Haoran
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" >01 "broom star" that will return</h1>
On November 14, 1680, the appearance of a comet caused an uproar on the European continent. In the past, the impression of seeing a comet was the last astronomical event. Incredibly, more than a month later, another comet reappeared!
The scientific pioneers with whom we know today: Newton, Hooke, and Flamsteed, Britain's first astronomer royal, were so shocked by the sight that they watched the stars every night for traces of comets. Even more shocking, two years later, a third comet reappeared. Several comet appearances in two years left a deep impression on the then 24-year-old Halley.
Figure 1: Rotterdamers observe The Great Comet in 1680, Image source: Wikipedia
In 1684, Halley met Newton at Cambridge and became friends. Halley fully supported Newton in writing his magnum opus, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and even his private donations funded the publication of the book. Newton had long suspected that the two comets that appeared in 1680 were actually the same comet before and after it passed the sun, but he did not write this discovery into his magnum opus.
In 1705, Halley also published The Astronomical Treatise on Comets, in which he used Newton's laws of motion to calculate the effects of planets on comet orbits, inferring that the three comets that appeared in 1682, 1607, and 1531 were actually multiple returns of the same comet. He also predicted that the comet would reappear in 1758. This comet, which Halley first accurately predicted, is what we later call Halley's Comet.
The discovery of Halley's Comet was not only an important milestone in the scientific revolution, but also an end to the illusion of natural disasters in a far eastern power for thousands of years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="139" >02 "Messenger of the Devil"</h1>
Comets are figuratively called broom stars in Chinese folklore, probably because they look like a long broomstick. Just as broomsticks don't give people much good association, comets are often seen as ominous omens.
In ancient Chinese literature, comets are often written as "comets" or "孛 (pronounced bèi)". For example, in the "Tianyuan Jade Calendar Xiang Xiang Endowment", the astrology for comets is "comet, for mourning", and for The star, it is recorded that "the light is four out of the bo." Bo Xing, for the soldier also".
Figure 2: Illustration of the Ming Zhu Si Column painted book "Tianyuan Jade Calendar Xiang Yi Endowment"
Like China, before the scientific revolution, Westerners were terrified of comets, believing that they were the culprits of disaster and disease. For example, in April 1066, When Halley's Comet returned, it coincided with the Hastings War in England, which eventually killed King Harold II. The sight of Halley's Comet was recorded on the Bayeux Tapestry, believing that Halley's Comet had brought God's warning.
Figure 3: The return of Comet Halley 1066 on the Bayeux tapestry, Image source: Wikipedia
When watching Harry Potter, I wonder if you have ever thought about the question: Why do Wizards in the West ride broomsticks? I have also wondered whether such an association is related to a comet, but I have not found similar records or methods. The evil of wizards and the disasters brought by comets thus constitute the empathetic memories of people in the ancient world and the East.
Figure 4: The image of a witch riding a broom appears in a European medieval manuscript, Image source: Wikipedia
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="140" >03 Heritage of the East</h1>
However, if we want to say that the ancient Chinese only focused on divination and did not observe, I am afraid that it would be biased. In fact, Chinese ancestors have been observing comets since a long time ago, and not only to see, but also to paint. There are at least three comet maps from Han Dynasty tombs that have been handed down.
The most famous is the early Western Han Dynasty book "Astronomical meteorological miscellaneous occupation" excavated from the Mawangdui No. 3 Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province. This picture is not a comet, but 29 comet forms of various types, and it is also classified according to the shape of the comet nucleus and tail, of course, in order to better predict the auspiciousness. The ancients of more than two thousand years have observed it in such detail that they ask you if you are convinced?
Figure 5: The book "Astronomical meteorological miscellaneous occupation" excavated from the tomb of Mawangdui Han, picture source: Hunan Provincial Museum
During the Two Han Dynasties, the art of wei (pronounced chèn) was prevalent, and people were eager to understand the special phenomena of nature, but lacked effective methods. Therefore, through observation, summary, and forced explanation, they satisfy their desire for the unknown.
Celestial phenomena such as comets, which do not have much impact on people's lives, are often associated with natural disasters such as water, drought, hail, wind, no snow in winter, earthquakes, landslides, and locusts. Therefore, the observation of abnormal celestial phenomena naturally became an important part of astronomical institutions under the imperial rule. The Zhou Li records that Bao Zhangshi was an official in charge of astronomical observation during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and his duties included "controlling the celestial stars to see the changes of the sun, moon, and stars, to observe the migration of the world, and to distinguish their auspiciousness."
Under the guidance of such a guiding ideology, it is not difficult to imagine why in ancient Chinese books, it is possible to find records of every Return of Halley's Comet from the seventh year of Qin Shi Huang (240 BC) to the eve of the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
Not only that, in fact, before the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, there were two records of the return of Halley's Comet. They are "Autumn and July, there are stars entering the Big Dipper" in 613 BC (the fourteenth year of Lu Wengong), and "Qin Li Gong Gong Ten Years, Comet See (Chronology of the Six Kingdoms of History)" in 467 BC.
Figure 6: The return of Halley's Comet in 1910 as recorded in the Qing Dynasty Literature Tongkao Vol. 306
When Halley's Comet returned in 1910, China was already on its way to the year before the collapse of feudalism. According to the records of the "Qing Dynasty Continued Literature General Examination": "On the third hour of the 18th of April, the comet appeared in the south-west-southwest of Liusu, and the tail pointed southeast, between the wing and the famous hall, and the comet was measured to be twenty-six degrees high and twelve degrees south-west. It faded away until May 30. ”
It can be seen that the officials of the Qin Tianjian have also kept pace with the times and begun to use goniometers to measure the height, orientation, and trajectory of Halley's Comet. The astronomers also submitted a special seal, indicating that the appearance of Halley's Comet "is not the main auspicious and so on."
This is certainly a kind of progress compared to thousands of years of feudal tradition. It's just a pity that this progress came too late. At this time, the world has long entered the modern era, and cars, airplanes, and radios are already familiar. And we, inevitably, are lagging behind.
The Englishman Halley was the first to predict the return of Halley's Comet, the short-period comet that most often accompanies humans, and is also named after him. Our continuous observation for thousands of years has not been exchanged for the naming right of a comet, as if we passed a good ball in the whole field, but did not complete the goal of a kick.
Figure 7: A postcard of halley's comet return published in Germany in 1910, image source: Wikipedia
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="141" >04 Are ancient Chinese Halley's Comet records waste paper? </h1>
Fortunately, scientific research is not a football game. Halley's ability to successfully predict the return of this comet is also due to Kepler's three laws of planets and Newton's law of gravitation, and the exploration of nature has always needed to go forward and step by step.
In fact, due to the complexity of the comet's orbital motion, it was not very easy for astronomers to accurately predict the comet's return time long after Halley.
Comet Encke, discovered in 1818, was about 0.11 days shorter each time it returned than the last. Among the previous 29 returns, the longest regression period was 79.3 years, and the shortest was only 74.4 years, with an average of 76.73 years, and the longest and shortest were five years apart. This is mainly because the gravitational pull of large planets such as Jupiter and Saturn in the solar system will affect the orbit of comets.
Figure 8: Astronomers calculated the orbit at the time of Halley's Comet's return in 1910, Image source: Wikipedia
To understand this law, it is obviously not enough to rely on the observations of our generation, after all, we alone can only see the return of Halley's Comet twice from birth to death. In ancient Chinese literature, the records of comets are extremely rich, with no less than 2583 records of comets before 1911, with a total of more than 10,000 entries, some of which also make a comprehensive description of the location, direction, form, date, etc. of comets.
Figure 9: The record of Halley's Comet in 1066 in the History of Song Astronomical Records is the longest record of comets
Since the middle of the last century, Mr. Zhang Yuzhe, Mr. Jiang Tao, and the American scholar J.L. Brady et al. have used The Chinese Halley Comet record to calculate its orbit, laying a foundation for us to further understand the operation of Halley's Comet.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="142" >05 Was it Halley's Comet when King Wu saw it? </h1>
Mr. Zhang Yuzhe's research also produced a by-product: after calculating the return record of Halley's Comet, he published an article in 1986 proposing that the "Wu King's Cutting, Comet Out and Granting Yin People its Handle, Sometimes There Are Comets, the Handle is in the East, can sweep the Western people also", which may refer to a return of Halley's Comet, thus determining that the age of the Wu King's Harvest should be in 1057 BC.
As soon as this conclusion came out, it immediately aroused strong repercussions, especially the historians were very surprised by the use of astronomical methods to solve the problem of historical chronology, and now we call this kind of research astronomical historical chronology.
Unfortunately, Mr. Zhang Yuzhe's deduction has the word "if", which is ignored by people. In other words, it is also very likely that the comet seen at the time of the Wu King's harvest was not Halley's Comet. Until 1999, After analyzing various periodic comets, Mr. Lu Xianwen and others believed that it was unrealistic to simply infer the dating of Wu Wang's harvest from Halley's Comet. The road to astronomical history and chronology still has a long way to go.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="143" >06 "Broomstick Star" is back! </h1>
Halley's Comet was last returned in 1985. If in 1910 the means of observation by astronomers were extremely limited, by 1985 the situation had changed dramatically. After all, in the more than half a century that Halley's Comet has been circling, science and technology have also changed with each passing day, and radio astronomy, space exploration, electronic computers and other technologies have come into being during this period.
Therefore, for the return of Halley's Comet, astronomers around the world are gearing up and making everything ready. The International Astronomical Union has set up the "International Halley Comet Joint Survey (IHW)", the 5.1-meter optical telescope of the Palomar Observatory in the United States has captured signs of Halley's Comet's return as far away as 1982, and the Giotto spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency flew close to the nucleus of Halley's Comet and collected dust... The IHW's seven research groups, as well as as astronomy enthusiasts around the world, are impressed. It can be said that this is the first time in human history that technical means can be used to comprehensively study this "old friend".
For Chinese astronomy, at this time, it has also shaken off the shackles of history and strived to catch up with the forefront of world astronomy. On November 4, 1984, the Yunnan Observatory's 1-meter reflecting telescope captured Halley's Comet, although it was two years later than the Americans, but it was also the first time that Chinese used his own telescope to observe Halley's Comet, achieving a breakthrough in history.
Figure 10: Observation Station of the National Astronomical Observatory (As of 2019, Li Geng has made a map)
The next time Halley's Comet returns is in 2061. In the past decade, China has put more and more astronomical telescopes and astronomical satellites into use. It is believed that after forty years, Chinese astronomers will once again become an indispensable force in the international halley comet joint test.
“
About the Author
Li Geng
Associate Professor, National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor, School of Astronomy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Graduated from the Department of Astronomy of Nanjing University and the Institute of Natural Science History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, his main research areas are archaeological astronomy and historical astronomy. He is currently a director of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology and the deputy secretary-general of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
”
bibliography:
ZHANG Peiyu. Historical records of Halley's Comet in China. Historical Materials of Chinese Science and Technology, 1986(7).
ZHANG Yuzhe. The trajectory of Halley's Comet has evolved towards trends and its ancient history. Acta Astronomicala Sinica,1978.6.0.
Lu Xianwen,Jiang Xiaoyuan,Niu Weixing. Recognition and Chronology of Ancient Comets. Acta Astronomica Sinica, 1999.8.
Ye Lu. The return of Halley's Comet in 1910 and the "eschatology" debate. Dialectics of Nature, 2017.7.