This research has made heavy use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service

Test 1

Sirius is red

[NO] Sirius is actually Cyan or light blue -->


However, in the past, it may have been red. Sirius has certainly been observed for a long time:

<--Ancient Egyptian record of Sirius (shaped like a starfish in the middle of the third column from the right) known as the "Elephantine Calendar" and dating from the reign of Tuthmosis I (c. 1450 BC). This lists offerings to the gods on the day of the "heliacal rising" on the 28th day of the third month of summer, when Sirius rises just before the Sun, which marks the flooding of the Nile.
A depiction of Canis Major and Sirius (the head) from the Phenomena of Aratus (fl c. 300BC), an astronomical text enumerating the constellations. Translated into Latin by Cicero and Hugo Grotius, this copy dates frrom the reign of Charlemagne in the 9th Century AD. -->

Anyone who knows if this text, either in the body added by Julius Hyginus, or the text underneath it, has any references to "Red Sirius" can get a prize.

 



"Red Sirius" is itself a cause célèbre of archaeoastronomy of equal fascination and controversy to the Dogon claims. A thorough discussion of a historically "red" Sirius is contained in:

The stellar field in the vicinity of Sirius and the color enigma by J.M. Bonnet-Bidaud and C. Gry. (Astronomy and Astrophysics 252 193-197 (1991) obtained from the wonderful treasure trove of NASA Astrophysics Data System).

 

These authors review controversies over Babylonian, Graeco-Roman and medaeval texts, but maintain the most reliable classical Western reference is Ptolemy's Almagest (137 AD).

(<--Page of a sumptuously illuminated commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest downloaded from a Vatican exhibit)

In the Almagest, Ptolemy refers to Sirius as hipokkiros ("reddish"), among stars like Aldebaran and Betelgeuse.

A machine-readable version of the Almagest star catalogue (available from CDS as a Gzipped file, requiring Gunzip), does not mention colour, but is unequivocal about the star's identification as No. 1 star in Canis Major, modern HR2491, with a Ptolemeian magnitude of 1 (brightest).

<-- Betelgeuse... distintly reddish

However, Bonnet-Bidaud and Gry have unearthed another reliable ancient source from China, the Historical Records (Shiji) of Sima Qian (145 BC - 87 BC). Sima Qian is famous for having collected texts surviving from the book burning ordered by Emperor Qin Shih in 213 BC. The information is contained in the "Book of Heavenly Bodies" (Tian Guan Shu), chapter 27 of Shiji. This document is extracted from Qing-ding-si-ku-quan-shu (Ed. Zhong Hua Shu Ju 1959)

The paragraph about Sirius is in large heavy characters in the right and left columns. It translates literally as:

At East/ there is/ old man's/ star/ called/ Wolf/

/ Wolf/ horn/ changes/ colour/ , /many/ thieves/ robbers/

(translation amended after independent audit)

It is suggested that "horn" (jiao) refers to an asymmetry of the star.

Bonnet-Bidaud and Gry explore the causes of a possible red Sirius and subsequent color change. A red-giant phase is ruled out for the unrealistically short time for stellar evolution. Next hypothesis is a so-called Bok globule, the smallest unit of dark nebula that has been observed. A small globule in front of Sirius is said to have a non-negligible probability. It is calculated Sirius would take about 1,000 years to cover the extent of a motionless globule, while retaining a magnitude of 1.5.


The third cause of a Red Sirius suggested by Bonnet-Bidaud and Gry is a red dwarf companion to the Sirius system: See TEST 10.


Next


Testable Statements Sirius A Sirius B Sirius C Other Bodies Conclusions Start page Meet the Dogon! Marcel Griaule and the God of Water A Sudaneses System of Sirius The Pale Fox Ethnographical conclusions Guestnook Prizes

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