Prehistoric Native Americans may have carved a record of a supernova explosion that appeared in the skies a millennium ago into a rock in Arizona, US.

John Barentine, an astronomer at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, came across the carving while hiking in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park in Arizona.
It depicts a scorpion and an eight-pointed star.

"I had just been reading about the supernova of AD 1006 and I knew it appeared in the constellation Scorpius, so the connection flashed into my mind." - John Barentine.

http://www.newscientistspace.com/art...explosion.html

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Assuming that Native Americans would have organized the stars into the same constellations long ago as we have now seems a bit rash.

My impression is that part of the constellation currently called Scorpio is described by some Native Americans as being a duck, while another part is a rabbit, although the direction that the rock faces does seem to be suggestive.

Yeah,
that part of the story sounded a bit dubious when i read it too.

Information Link

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The article mentioned that a planetarium was used to show how it would have looked from Arizona. For what it's worth, here's what Celestia shows for May 1, 1006, at about 07:00 UT (Midnight local?) from White Tank Mountain.

Attached Images

sn1006-white_tank_mtn.jpg (91.9 KB, 83 views)

Hum,
excellent work.

The supernova remanant is at
Position(2000): RA = 15h 04m 10.01s Dec = -41º 53' 44.88"

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Sorry: I should have mentioned that SN1006 is the bright star in the center of the picture. I made a Celestia catalog entry that caused it to be drawn, but neglected to make an entry that would have labelled it, too.

I too would want to know what kind of constellations the Hohokam (or their descendants) had before I clinch it. There's also the very real possibility that the art is purely symbolic.

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As well as the possibility that it's made because it's pretty, though that idea would be anathema to an archaeologist.

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Well, that's some impressive synchronicity, wouldn't you say? Sounds more like he lept to this conclusion because the supernova had already been on his mind. If the paintings were conclusively dated to around AD 1006, I might be a little more credulous. For now, like selden, I'm pretty skeptical that Native Americans would have seen the same constellations as us.

Hum,
i never really noticed, but the planet Mars was very bright in the scorpion constellation (constellation of the Rabbit Tracks)- at mag -2.1.


Position(2000): RA = 15h57m59.21s Dec =-21°00'59.0"

Attached Images

1006-4-30-23h47m.gif (14.0 KB, 23 views)

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GAH!!!

I was just about to post a link to this!

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/05/rock.art/

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http://www.space.com/scienceastronom..._rock_art.html

"Ancient Rock Art Depicts Exploding Star "

"The Hohokam petroglyph depicts symbols of a scorpion and stars that match a model showing the relative positions of the supernova with respect to the constellation Scorpius. The model was created by John Barentine, an astronomer at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico and Gilbert Esquerdo, a research assistant at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona."

My question:
Why would Native Americans in 1006 use a scorpion to represent the constellation we know as Scorpio?

Regarding the suggestion the carving also shows the stars of Scorpio,
check the photo in the article & tell me how you can see scorpio in that?

1) Because Scorpius actually looks like a scorpion!
2) Scorpions are common in the desert southwest.

[nitpick mode] Scorpius is the name of the constellation - Scorpio is a sign of the zodiac. [nitpick mode off]

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See Astronomy topic Sn1006.

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I share Dangerlaef's skepticism (welcome to the forum), but I can't really get a good look at the rock. What raised a red flag for me was the statement
Now, exactly why do we need to date pre-written-language art from 1006 to a better accuracy than a few decades? Is there any investigation of that culture happening to such a level of precision?

Threads merged - apologies from the management for any ensuing confusion.

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Since we're talking about whether an image depicts a supernova or not, then yes, we do need to date it a lot better than to within a couple of decades.

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"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Right, Henrik. But I believe Ken G's problem (one I share) is that the researcher is attempting to date the painting based on the supernova! He's not attempting to determine the age of the painting to verify whether it depicts the supernova, he's taking it for a given that the painting does depict the supernova and extrapolating from there. It's bad science, basically. Drawing conclusions from unproven assumptions.

The problem is that that's using the same data to verify the hypothesis that you used to get the idea in the first place, which is one of the unforgivable sins in science.

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"God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ...
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

As furtim is saying, the author applies the logic in the opposite direction, he suggests that if we take the image as being of the supernova, then we can date it at 1006, which is better dating than we can do with carbon-14. Never mind that this overlooks the possibility that the image was drawn from decades-old memory (or isn't of the supernova, of course), it is still pretty irrelevant to be able to hone the accuracy of the dating of that particular image, given what I am sure is staggering uncertainty about all the other timescales pertaining to that culture.