No light, neither air pollution. No streetlights, garden beamers and any other engine polluters. No telescopes ... yet.
585BC Thales predicts a solar eclipse
467BC Anaxagoras gives and explanation of an eclipse
400BC Babyloniers map the zodiac
387BC Plato explains the universe is in harmony, planets all around d the Sun
270BC Aristarchus endorsed heliocentric
240BC Halley’s comet by the Chinese
4BC Shi Shen cataloged constellations and did some sunspot observing
140 AD Ptolemy star catalogue, endorsed geocentric (for the next 1500 years)
2020?
We have mobile devices to tell you where the planets are, the constellations, even when and where to watch the International Space Station or many other satellites. All details of solar eclipses, etc, etc.
But, we also can define what we could have seen over 2000 years ago!
What did the Magi see? What was the Star of Betlehem, the Christmas Star? We need to define date, year, time, travel time, position, direction …. 25 December year ?
Some facts …
- Herod died some time between 4BC and 1BC
- The Magi visited Herod before he died, who told them about the birth of Christ
- The Magi where Babylonier astrologers (not Kings and not defined there were 3)
- Not all celestial events can be traced via astronomical software (supernovae, meteors, comets)
- Terminology used to describe celestial events 20 centuries ago - to be called “a star” - shooting stars (meteors), hairy stars (comets), wandering stars (planets)
- It takes months to travel the hundreds of miles from Babylonia to Judea
More …
- Was the actual date of the birth on 25 December ? Year 0 was “forgotten” - Dionysius Exiguus made on top “a mistake” of 4 years where Caesar Augustus rained as Ocatavius - Christ’s birth was at least 5BC
- On 25 December? More likely in spring (St. Luke: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night”)
- In ancient times, 25 December was the date of the lavish Roman festival of Saturnalia. It was a time when gifts were exchanged; homes, streets and buildings were decorated; people came home for the holidays and everybody was in a happy, party mood.
- It has been said that early Christians chose the date of the Saturnalia in order to avoid attention and thus escape persecution. When the Roman emperor Constantine officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century, the date of Christmas remained 25 December.
At least 4 theories have been advanced to explain the Star of Betlehem from a purely astronomical viewpoint:
The Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament is the only place this “star” is mentioned in the Bible (Matt 2:2, 7-10, King James Version). Even there, information on the star is sparse. The most telling reference is Matt. 2:9:
When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
- Bright meteor, fireball of shooting star?
- A bright comet
Magi would likely have gone the other way
- Super nova outburst
- Planet conjunction
- Jupiter and Saturn remained within 3 degrees of each other, from late April of 7BC until early January of 6BC. When they first emerged above the Eastern horizon, the 2 planets were separated by only about 2/5 of the Moon's apparent diameter or 12”.
- June 2BC, as Jupiter (the king star/planet) and the stars of Leo (king constellation) began to sink into the Western evening twilight, Venus (mother star/planet) again returned to this same region of the sky for an even more spectacular encore. The Magi certainly would have especially taken note that on the evening of June 17, Jupiter and Venus appeared even closer together than they did in the dawn skies of the previous August. Venus was closer to Jupiter than the Jovian Moons.
If you accept the story told in the Bible as the literal truth, then the Christmas Star could not have been a natural apparition (its movement in the sky and its ability to stand above and mark a single building).
Science cannot explain it as any known physical object; history offers no clear record; and religion offers only an untestable miraculous apparition.