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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik
GP 9: Freie Sektion II
GP 9.1: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 18. März 2015, 15:00–15:30, HL 001
Tycho Brahe, Abū Macshar, and the comet beyound Venus — •Ralph Neuhaeuser1, Paul Kunitzsch2, and Markus Mugrauer1 — 1AIU, U Jena, Schillergäßchen 2, 07745 Jena, Germany — 2LMU München, Germany
In his publication about the AD 1577 comet, Tycho Brahe showed that comets are outside the Earth atmosphere and quoted the 9th century AD Arabic scholar Abū Macshar saying: Dixit Albumasar, Cometa supra Venerem visus fuit (based on a Latin translation of the original Arabic), i.e. that he had reported much earlier that comets were seen beyond Venus. So far, neither a direct translation of the original Arabic was presented nor the observation and logic behind Abū Macshar’s conclusion was understood. We present here the original Arabic text (MS Ankara Saib 199) together with our translation and interpretation. Abū Macshar reported that he has observed Venus in (or projected onto) a tail of a comet and concluded that the comet is behind Venus – obviously because he erroneously considered the tail to be intransparent. He also mentioned that others had observed Jupiter and Saturn in cometary tails, so that those comets would even be beyond those two outer planets. Indeed, in AD 836 December, the planet Jupiter was located projected onto (but behind) the tail of comet P1/Halley. While the argument by Abū Macshar is not correct, parts of the result – namely that comets are outside the Earth atmosphere and beyond the moon – is correct. This may have helped Tycho Brahe to come to the same revolutionary conclusion.