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Startling evidence suggests the ancient Egyptians understood the inner mechanics of a binary star system, spinning through our skies 93 light years away, more than 3,200 years ago.
Not only that, their specific calculations have helped support a scientific line of inquiry which only emerged just a few years ago.
The binary system - two stars which rotate around each other - was first noted in modern astronomy by a John Goodricke, back in 1783.
He spotted how Algol - also known as the Demon Star - appeared to decrease in brightness for a few hours every 2.87 days, and was the first to theorise that this was two stars blocking each other's light in relation to Earth.
Or we thought he was the first - it turns out the Egyptians apparently had this all figured 3,000 years earlier.
The eclipses in binary stars give precise information of orbital period changes. Goodricke discovered the 2.867 days period in the eclipses of Algol in the year 1783. The irregular orbital period changes of this longest known eclipsing binary continue to puzzle astronomers. The mass transfer between the two members of this binary should cause a long-term increase of the orbital period, but observations over two centuries have not confirmed this effect. Here, we present evidence indicating that the period of Algol was 2.850 days three millenia ago. For religious reasons, the ancient Egyptians have recorded this period into the Cairo Calendar, which describes the repetitive changes of the Raging one. Cairo Calendar may be the oldest preserved historical document of the discovery of a variable star.
We discovered connections between Algol and Egyptian scribes writings that can hardly be a coincidence. All statistical, astrophysical, astronomical and egyptological details matched. The period recorded in CC may represent a valuable constraint for future studies of MT in EBs. Goodricke’s achievement in 1783 was outstanding. The same achievement by the scribes of ancient Egypt, if true, was literally fabulous.
Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the General Relativity equations by Georges Lemaître in a 1927 article where he proposed that the Universe is expanding and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, now called the Hubble constant. Two years later Edwin Hubble confirmed the existence of that law and determined a more accurate value for the constant that now bears his name. The recession velocity of the objects was inferred from their redshifts, many measured earlier by Vesto Slipher (1917) and related to velocity by him
"And it is We who have built the universe with (Our creative) power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it." - 51:47
originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
Definitely interesting. Although noticing the change in brightness and assigning the cause of it is not the same. Can anyone link a source where the Egyptian scribes correctly assigned the cause?
Startling evidence suggests the ancient Egyptians understood the inner mechanics of a binary star system, spinning through our skies 93 light years away, more than 3,200 years ago.