Ancient Greeks spotted Halley's comet

NewsScientist ^ | 09 Sep 2010 | Jo Marchant

[Palter]

Halley, greek, ping.

[Sacajaweau]

duh.........

[dangerdoc]

Greek fire....in the sky bump.

[WakeUpAndVote]

I don't know if they were Greek or not.

[ClearCase_guy]

Proving, once again, that astrophysics is all Greek to me.

[Deaf Smith]

The bigger question is what did they do with that "wagonload" sized meteorite?

After 500 years, they figured out how to melt/hammer it down and make fine edged weapons?

[Constitution Day]

That was my first question too!

[bunkerhill7]

According to ancient authors, from Aristotle onwards, a meteorite the size of a “wagonload” crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC. They beat their wagonload of plowshares into swords and spears.

[Deaf Smith]

Is that where Damascus Steel came from? From bits of the meteorite that were traded?

[Boogieman]

They sold a chunk of it to a passing camel caravan and told them it was “from God”.

[Deaf Smith]

Sort of like the apes in 2001 Space Odyssey?

[GreenHornet]

According to ancient authors, from Aristotle onwards, a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC. The impact shocked the local population and the rock became a tourist attraction for 500 years.

The ancient Greeks then went on to speculate that the proliferation of large wagons on the streets of Greece were the cause of this incident, and were contributing to global warming. Unless such wagons were outlawed, it was feared that life as they knew it would vanish by 325 B.C.

[Constitution Day]

I don’t know about that! I was under the impression that Damascas steel techniques were thought to have originally come from India.

I saw something on the History Channel about that once.

[Palter]

Who knows. Very curious though. Some previous use of a meteorite. The famous Tucson Ring.

Replica of the Tucson Ring used as an anvil

In 1850 one fragment of the meteorite was taken to the Mexican presidio in Tucson - the blacksmith there used the Ring meteorite as an anvil - the widest part was used as a work surface

[SunkenCiv]

According to ancient authors, from Aristotle onwards, a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC. The impact shocked the local population and the rock became a tourist attraction for 500 years.

Thanks Palter! A nice two-list topic. Aristotle for his part continuously denied that stones could fall from the sky, claiming quite pontifically that such reports were attributable to two causes -- one, ignorant unschooled rural buffoons, and two, stones lifted by the winds from elsewhere on the Earth's surface.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Antiquity Journal  & archive  Archaeologica  Archaeology  Archaeology Channel  BAR  Bronze Age Forum  Discover  Dogpile  Eurekalert  Google  LiveScience  Mirabilis.ca  Nat Geographic  PhysOrg  Science Daily  Science News  Texas AM  Yahoo  Excerpt, or Link only?	Thanks Palter, nice find!. ... a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC... Philosopher Daniel Graham and astronomer Eric Hintz of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, modelled the path that Halley's comet would have taken... The researchers show that Halley's comet would have been visible for a maximum of 82 days between 4 June and 25 August 466 BC... None of this proves the comet's identity, but Graham says such major comet sightings are rare, so Halley must be a "strong contender". Previously, the earliest known sighting of Halley was made by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword · · Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·

[SunkenCiv]

/bravo

[SunkenCiv]

It’s unlikely that rocks coming down from Halley’s Comet would be made of pure iron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/solar_system/minecarb.html