An ancient eclipse decoded

1912 BCE According to Kevin Pang, a Pasadena, California, USA, geology consultant, when 4th-Century BCE Chinese philosopher Motze wrote, in his account of a battle some 1,500 years earlier, “The sun rose at night”, he was referring to a total solar eclipse that took place on this day. The sun’s re-emergence from behind the moon was thus recorded as a nocturnal sunrise.

Because Pang knew precisely where the battle took place, by astronomical calculations done with the help of a computer program by Kevin Yau of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was possible to discover the eclipse of September 24, 1912 BCE and thus understand what event Motze was referring to.

Categories: astronomy, china