Journal of Astronomical History and
Heritage, 21(1), 7‒12 (2018),
Bradley E. Schaefer Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State
University, “YES,
ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS CAN AND DID DISCOVER THE VARIABILITY OF BETELGEUSE”:
Abstract:
Recently, a widely publicized claim has been made that the Aboriginal
Australians discovered the variability of the red star Betelgeuse in the modern
Orion, plus the variability of two other prominent red stars: Aldebaran and
Antares. This result has excited the usual healthy skepticism, with questions
about whether any untrained peoples can discover the variability and whether
such a discovery is likely to be placed into lore and transmitted for long
periods of time. Here, I am offering an independent evaluation, based on broad
experience with naked-eye sky viewing and astro-history. I find that it is easy
for inexperienced observers to detect the variability of Betelgeuse over its
range in brightness from V = 0.0 to V = 1.3, for example in noticing from
season-to-season that the star varies from significantly brighter than Procyon
to being greatly fainter than Procyon. Further, indigenous peoples in the
Southern Hemisphere inevitably kept watch on the prominent red star, so it is
inevitable that the variability of Betelgeuse was discovered many times over
during the last 65 millennia. The processes of placing this discovery into a
cultural context (in this case, put into morality stories) and the faithful
transmission for many millennia is confidently known for the Aboriginal
Australians in particular. So this shows that the whole claim for a changing Betelgeuse
in the Aboriginal Australian lore is both plausible and likely. Given that the
discovery and transmission is easily possible, the real proof is that the
Aboriginal lore gives an unambiguous statement that these stars do indeed vary
in brightness, as collected by many ethnographers over a century ago from many
Aboriginal groups. So I strongly conclude that the Aboriginal Australians could
and did discover the variability of Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, and Antares.
Keywords:
Aboriginal astronomy, variable stars: Betelgeuse, Antares, Aldebaran
Read
the full paper at https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1808/1808.01862.pdf.
Original
paper by Duane W. Hamacher, Monash
Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University,
“Observations of red–giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians”
at http://www.aboriginalastronomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Variable_Stars.pdf?fbclid=IwAR11OnhyKIcvaxcFEJ1n5c0me9_FZtTi6mlNUfSKpa1r2wjgZ-WhMAqHU1s
Both
papers are well worth a read by everyone who has ever looked up at the night
skies in wonder.
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