An Arabic report about supernova SN 1006 by Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)

Abstract

We present here an Arabic report about supernova 1006 (SN 1006) written by the famous Persian scholar Ibn Sīnā (Lat. Avicenna, AD 980-1037), which has not been discussed in astronomical literature before. The short observational report about a new star is part of Ibn Sīnā's book called al-Shifā', a work on philosophy including physics, astronomy, and meteorology. We present the Arabic text and our English translation. After a detailed discussion of the dating of the observation, we show that the text specifies that the transient celestial object was stationary and/or tail-less (a star among the stars), that it remained for close to 3 months getting fainter and fainter until it disappeared, that it threw out sparks, that is, it was scintillating and very bright, and that the colour changed with time. The information content is consistent with the other Arabic and non-Arabic reports about SN 1006. Hence, it is quite clear that Ibn Sīnā refers to SN 1006 in his report, given as an example for transient celestial objects in a discussion of Aristotle's Meteorology. Given the wording and the description, for example, for the colour evolution, this report is independent of other reports known so far.

Interpretation of the historic Yemeni reports of supernova SN 1006: Early discovery in mid‐April 1006?

“…citing from Xu et al (), a slightly different translation in Keimatsu (), both from Songshi 60.1308, without the text in brackets also in Yau, Stephenson, and Willis (). This is a probable aurora according to the criteria given in Neuhäuser and Neuhäuser (), namely northern directions, aurora‐typical color, and nighttime (implicitly given with the Moon) . What is reported as a white vapour penetrating the Moon may well be some halo effect around the Moon, which is quite possible 2 days before the full moon.…”

Critical comments on publications by S. Hoffmann and N. Vogt on historical novae/supernovae and their candidates

“…Such an objective operation may also help to avoid misclassifications and biases. For each astrophysical application, one needs only reliable candidates and well-constrained positions-just as "white rainbows" are not useful as aurora candidates for solar activity studies, because they are real fog-bows or night-time rainbows (see Neuhäuser et al 2018a), objects with extension and/or movement across the sky, like those among their list of "24 most promising events" (P3 Table 2), are obviously comets, not nova candidates.…”

“…For the different physical phenomena (e.g. aurorae, comets, SNe, meteors), certain typical properties are to be used for aurorae and Neuhäuser et al 2018b for meteors). Criteria are helpful to identify the physical nature of the observed event and to estimate its probability.…”

“…In Neuhäuser et al (2018bNeuhäuser et al ( , 2021b, we have suggested the following criteria for comets; even if several or most criteria are fulfilled, one always has to consider whether the whole story (plus possibly a drawing) is consistent with the classification: i. timing: observed at night-time or twilight, ii. position of first and/or last sighting: often close to the Sun, in or near the ecliptic, iii.…”

“…Connections of historical transients with SNe or novae are problematic in particular due to difficulties in the understanding of historical texts, which could be improved by transdisciplinary collaboration between astrophysicists, philologists, and historians—such a project is undertaken by us since 2012 under the name of Terra‐Astronomy (see Neuhäuser et al 2020). We have already studied various phenomena, for example, historical SNe (new Arabic records of SN 1006 in Rada & Neuhäuser 2015 and Neuhäuser et al 2017a, 2017b as well as of SNe 1572 and 1604 in R. Neuhäuser et al 2016b), comets in the late 8th century (e.g. Chapman et al 2014, 2015), and reconstruction of solar activity around AD 775 from aurorae and radiocarbon (e.g.…”