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This year The Morien Institute Skywatching Calendar will focus on many more aspects of astronomy news with video clips, while a number of previously regular features will no longer be included.
For example, the Daily Sunspot Number will no longer be compiled but will be given at the start of each month. Also, the number of asteroids and comets listed will be much lower than in past years, though we will list any which become naked-eye visible or may be or become visible to skywatchers using small backyard telescopes or binoculars. Anything that gets close enough to hit us, well …
Heliophysics is a fast-developing scientific discipline that integrates studies of the Sun’s variability,
the surrounding heliosphere, and the environment and climate of planets
Heliophysics is a fast-developing scientific discipline that integrates studies of the Sun’s variability,
the surrounding heliosphere, and the environment and climate of planets
Heliophysics is a fast-developing scientific discipline that integrates studies of the Sun’s variability,
the surrounding heliosphere, and the environment and climate of planets
“The 2300 BC Event takes a new look at an old puzzle: what happened at this date to cause the various advanced societies on the Earth to simultaneously collapse?
Civilizations in Anatolia and Greece, through Egypt and the Middle East, and eastward to India and Central Asia were at their height. The collapse of these civilizations due to earthquakes and climatic changes has been mirrored by similar interruptions on all continents, in the Arctic, and extending to the Pacific.
The discontinuities have long puzzled archaeologists and historians. New religions and accompanying mythologies appeared at this time in all cultural regions describing bombardment and flooding from the skies.
Strangely, the dominant aspect of the mythologies, however, is the observation and worship of a ring appearing to surround the Earth, oriented to the two Ursa (Bear) constellations.”
“Some time around 2300 BC the Eath encountered a dense clustering of space debris, the early Southern & Northern Taurid meteoroid stream. The result was an intense fall of meteoroids, some of them sufficiently large to cause surface destruction.
Simultaneous with the meteoroid fall was a huge downpouring of water which caused flash flooding. Extensive destruction and loss of life resulted. An astonishing aspect of the event was the formation of a ring surrounding the Earth, reflecting sunlight during the day, hiding some stars at night, and moving around the sky through a 24-hour period.
Following the ‘main event’, there were crustal movements which shifted the location of water sources, and caused earthquakes which destroyed settlements. Abrupt severe climate changes occurred.”
“The Northern/Southern Taurid meteoroid stream is identified as the specific meteoroid stream that the Earth encountered at 2300 BC.
The Earth’s encounter with a dense cluster of large objects would produce atmospheric phenomena very different from the pleasant and interesting night displays of meteor trails that are within our own experience.
The rain of objects would have generated extraordinary visual and auditory effects combined with ground vibrations; and under extreme conditions would bring about severe surface destruction and loss of life.
The overall event was associated by the people with powerful deities and formed the basis for major religions. The mythologies and traditions are, in large part, the residues of those religions.”
Research in the field of neo-catastrophism and impact cratering has quickened its pace since the early 1980s. Scholars such as Victor Clube, Bill Napier, Mark Bailey, Sir Fred Hoyle and Duncan Steel claim that a more ‘active’ sky might have caused major cultural changes of Bronze Age civilizations, belief systems and religious rituals.”
“What are some of the connections that bind us to the stars? How have these connections been established?
And how have people all around the world and throughout time reacted to the night sky, the sun and moon, in their poetry, mythology, rituals, and temples?
This book explores the influence of the sky on both ancient and modern civilization, by providing a clear overview of the many ways in which humans have used the stars as an ordering principle in their cultures, and which today still inspire us intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
The book explores constellation lore from around the world, celestial alignments of monuments and temples, both from ancient and modern civilizations, and the role the sky has played in the cultures of the Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, Native American, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec, and Inca.
Models of the universe from each of these cultures are described clearly, and each culture’s explanation of the stars, planets, and other celestial objects are described.
The roots of astronomy and astrology are presented with original imagery and reproductions of ancient manuscripts that portray the structure of the physical universe as conceived by a diverse array of human cultures over the centuries.
Our own scientific Big Bang cosmology and the origin of stars and elements are discussed in a philosophical context, to explore how we as modern people learn about the Universe, and incorporate the findings of science into our world views.
A concluding chapter provides a summary of modern science’s effort to unlock the celestial secrets from the sky and from past civilizations, and what these answers mean for us today.”
“Howard Crowhurst in this book has presented the most brilliant analysis of a megalithic site in the entire history of archaeology.
His elucidations of the geometrical, mathematical, and astronomical principles by which ancient Carnac was constructed prove that megalithic science was astonishingly advanced.
The book gives us unprecedented insight into the minds of the intellectuals of a lost civilisation, which we may at last begin to comprehend as a result of what Crowhurst has found during more than twenty years of living on site.
“Professor Alexander Thom was a foremost scientist and engineer of the last century.
Once Chair of Engineering Science at Brasenose College, Oxford, following an already distinguished career in both the academic and industrial world, during the War, he had been Principal Scientific Officer for the design of the High Speed Wind Tunnel at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and had assisted Sir Barnes Wallace in the design of the famous ‘bouncing bomb’ of Dambuster’s fame.
From 1934, Thom became interested in the megalithic culture that had erected the stone circles, rows and other monuments in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain.
He began to accurately survey these sites, and in 1967 published “Megalithic Sites in Britain” (Oxford) where he claimed the builders had been skilled surveyors and astronomers, and had used an identical and accurate unit of length to mark out their constructions throughout Britain, a length he called the Megalithic yard (2.72 feet or 0.829m).
Thom also discovered that they were using a geometry based on right-angled ‘Pythagorean’ triangles, triangles whose sides were whole numbers of this same megalithic yard, or subdivisions or multiples of it.
He also proposed that they were observing both the sun and moon using precision alignments to identified sites or natural features on a distant horizon. He even showed that they could have predicted eclipses.
The book was described by archaeologist Professor Richard Atkinson as ‘a well-constructed time-bomb dropped through the letterbox of archaeology’, and it caused a huge rumpus within the profession.
In effect Thom had demonstrated that there was a huge missing component in our understanding of the Megalithic culture, one that archaeologists had totally missed, and that our model of prehistory was flawed and hopelessly inadequate.”
“The legends of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades that poets, priests, prophets, shamans, storytellers, artists, singers, and historians have told throughout time are retold in this compilation of the stories that have found their inspiration in nine beautiful stars clustered together in the night sky.
While particular attention in this cross-cultural study is paid to the influence of the Pleiades cluster on the living traditions of indigenous people in North America, Australia, Japan, and the Pacific, much ancient mythology passed down through written and visual sources from ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and South America is also explored.
Appearances of the myths in the modern world are also mentioned, including American presidential elections, Halloween, Atlantis, the Titanic, and Subaru automobiles.
Serious astronomical research complements the variety of mythological explanations for the stars’ existence by providing the modern world’s scientific understanding of them.”
“The ancient Britons were inspired by a profound knowledge of the heavens when they erected the monumental stones of Avebury.
Mann throws light on the motive behind the creation of its awe-inspiring mounds and megaliths by demonstrating that they were aligned to the cycles of the Sun, Moon and stars.
This book will help visitors and readers to see Avebury in a wholly new light – the light of the heavenly bodies that guided its Neolithic builders.”
“After rumors surfaced about the sun bisecting a petroglyph at Chaco Canyon, people never looked at the site the same again.
The discovery proposed a cosmology at Chaco, and the book looks at the people who lived in the San Juan Basin from 850 AD to 1300, developing an elaborate culture around the cycles of the sun and moon.
Anna Sofaer’s pioneering work on Chaco Canyon, a World Heritage Site, should be required reading for anyone interested in how the prehistoric people of the American Southwest conceptualized their universe and placed themselves within that universe.”
“Since the beginning of humankind, people around the world have had a strong interest in the powers and beings perceived in the sky.
This compelling short work helps students fully understand and appreciate the ways in which non-Western indigenous and small-scale societies perceive, conceptualize, and make sure of what they astronomically observe.
With its concise explanations of prominent astronomical phenomena, discussions of relevant crosscultural examples, and instructive suggestions for active field research, Patterns in the Sky is a unique and practical guide for doing ethnoastronomy.
In addition, Fabian offers exercises in observational astronomy with the naked eye so that students can get in touch with the cosmos and natural world around them.”
“Were the pyramids of the pharaohs conceived in Britain?
The acclaimed coauthors of Civilization One think so, and they take readers on a gripping excursion into ancient religion and astronomy.
Knight and Butler not only establish the existence of an advanced civilization with astonishing, almost modern knowledge, but they also explain how the oldest Neolithic monuments – the henges of North Yorkshire – were planned, and their amazing connection to the later pyramids of Giza.”
“In IMHOTEP THE AFRICAN, Egyptologist, Robert Bauval, and astrophysicist, Thomas Brophy, uncover the mystery of Imhotep, ancient Egyptian superstar, pharaonic Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo and Newton all rolled into one.
Based on their research at the Step Pyramid Complex at Saqqara, Bauval and Brophy delve into observational astronomy to ‘decode’ the alignments and other design features of the Step Pyramid Complex, to uncover the true origins and genius of Imhotep.”
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