page_title: SN 1054
section_title: Historical records
hierarchical_section_title: SN 1054 / Historical records
caption_attribution_description: English: A 'guest star' identified as the supernova of 1054 in the pages of the Lidai mingchen zouyi (歷代名臣奏議), which dates to 1414. The highlighted passages refer to the supernova. Transcription: “宋仁宗至和二年。侍御史趙抃上言曰。臣伏見自去年五月巳来。妖星遂見。僅及周稔。至今光耀未退。此谷永所謂馳騁驟歩。芒炎長短。所厯奸犯。其為謫變。甚可畏也。⋯⋯ 不然。何以妖星謫變也。” Translation: “2nd year of the Zhihe reign period of Emperor Renzong of Song [1055]; Attendant Censor Zhao Bian submitted a letter saying: "Your servant considers that, since the 5th month of last year [when] the baleful star appeared, a full year has passed and until now its brilliance has not faded [lit. 'retreated']. This is what Gu Yong meant by 'its rapid movement, the variations in the length of its flaming rays, and the [asterisms] on which it has trespassed successively,' as a censorious anomaly it is greatly to be feared."”—&#8201;in:&#160;Pankenier 2006, "Notes on translations of the East Asian records relating to the supernova of AD 1054."
context_page_description: SN 1054 is a supernova that was first observed on c. 5 July 1054, and remained visible for around two years.
  The event was recorded in contemporary Chinese astronomy, and references to it are also found in a later Japanese document, and in a document from the Islamic World. Furthermore, there are a number of proposed, but doubtful, references from European sources recorded in the 15th century, and perhaps a pictograph associated with the Ancestral Puebloan culture found near the Peñasco Blanco site in New Mexico, United States.
  The remnant of SN 1054, which consists of debris ejected during the explosion, is known as the Crab Nebula. It is located in the sky near the star Zeta Tauri. The core of the exploding star formed a pulsar, called the Crab Pulsar. The nebula and the pulsar that it contains are some of the most studied astronomical objects outside the Solar System. It is one of the few Galactic supernovae where the date of the explosion is well known. The two objects are the most luminous in their respective categories.
context_section_description: SN 1054 is one of eight supernovae in the Milky Way that can be identified because written testimony describing the explosion has survived. In the nineteenth century, astronomers began to take an interest in the historic records. They compiled and examined the records as part of their research on recent novae, comets, and later, the supernovae.
  The first people to attempt a systematic compilation of records from China were the father and son Biot. In 1843, the sinologist Édouard Biot translated for his father, the astronomer Jean-Baptiste Biot, passages from the astronomical treatise of the 348-volume Chinese encyclopaedia, the Wenxian Tongkao.
  Almost 80 years later, in 1921, Knut Lundmark undertook a similar effort based on a greater number of sources. In 1942, Jan Oort, convinced that the Crab Nebula was the "guest star" of 1054 described by the Chinese, asked sinologist J.J.L. Duyvendak to help him compile new evidence on the observation of the event.
caption: The guest star reported by Chinese astronomers in 1054 is identified as SN 1054. The highlighted passages refer to the supernova.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)"}