Guest Observer Facilities & Science Centers Select One AGILE ASCA BeppoSAX COBE CGRO Chandra EUVE Fermi (formerly GLAST) GALEX HETE-2 INTEGRAL ROSAT RXTE Suzaku Swift WMAP XMM-Newton NASA Archives Select One ADS AstroGravS EOSDIS HORIZONS IRSA LAMBDA MAST Michelson NED NSSDC NStED PDS SDAC SPDF Spitzer Science Center HEASARC Tip: View all tips A Brief History of High-Energy Astronomy: 0 - 999 CE Era In Reverse Chronological Order 536 - 545 CE (or AD) A decade-long period of unusually world-wide cold weather occurs, based on dendrochronological (tree-ring) and limited historical records. Rigby et al. (2004, A&G, 45, 1.23) suggest this cold snap was triggered by the airburst destruction of a comet or comet fragment of only about half a kilometer diameter which released a huge cloud of obscuring dust into the Earth's atmosphere. 421 CE (or AD) Chinese astronomers observe and record a `guest star' which is now suspected to be a supernova explosion, possibly the one which produced the supernova remnant MSH 11-54 = SNR 292.0+01.8 (Wang et al. 1986, Highlights of Astronomy, 7, 583). 393 CE (or AD) Chinese astronomers observe and record a `guest star' which is now considered to be the supernova explosion SN 393, possibly the one which produced the supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946. 386 CE (or AD) Chinese astronomers observe and record a `guest star' which is now considered likely to be the supernova explosion SN 386 which produced the supernova remnant SNR 011.2-00.3. 185 CE (or AD) Chinese astronomers observe and record a `guest star' which is now considered to be the supernova explosion SN 185 which produced the supernova remnant RCW 86 (SNR 315.0-02.3). ~150 CE (or AD) Claudius Ptolemy publishes his influential studies on mathematics, geography, optics and astronomy, including the Almagest. His detailed geocentric model of the motions of the planets was accepted as correct by most astronomers for the next one and a half millennia . 125 CE (or AD) Chinese astronomers observe and record a `guest star' which is now suspected to be a supernova explosion, possibly the one which produced the supernova remnant 3C 391 = SNR 031.9+00.0 (Wang et al. 1986, Highlights of Astronomy, 7, 583). Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this page: Jesse S. Allen, and Ian M. George along with JPL's Space Calendar and the Working Group for the History of Astronomy's Astronomiae Historia (History of Astronomy) information pages. Web page author: Stephen A. Drake (based on an original by Jesse S. Allen) Web page maintainer: Stephen A. Drake HEASARC Home | Observatories | Archive | Calibration | Software | Tools | Students/Teachers/Public Last modified: Friday, 20-Jun-2008 15:01:50 EDT