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Gen_Hazard t1_j2iw1gw wrote

Reply to comment by Smooth_Detective in Ancient Chinese text reveals earliest known record of auroral display, described as a ‘five-colored light’ event in either 977 or 957 BCE by marketrent

China can get pretty far North.

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RegentYeti t1_j2jewkj wrote

I just looked it up, the northernmost point in China that I could find is at roughly the same latitude as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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HiiohoiHalojata t1_j2jnpa1 wrote

Aurora ovals are centered around geomagnetic poles and not geographic poles. The northern one is tilted heavily towards North America so the chance to see auroras at 53° N China is the same as in Indianapolis (39.7° N)

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gob0 t1_j2jqzs7 wrote

Was it so heavily tilted towards North America in 900 BC?

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HiiohoiHalojata t1_j2ju2wb wrote

That's a great point. Although the north magnetic pole has wandered quite a lot during the past 100 years, the geomagnetic pole has stayed relatively still. However, 3000 years is still a long time so it's definitely possible it was way closer to the geographic poles.

I didn't find any information about its location before 1900. The magnetic pole (not geomagnetic pole) was actually even more tilted towards North America at around 1600 than now

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Atharaphelun t1_j2js4pv wrote

Ancient China (that is, pre-Imperial China), not so much. China had yet to expand far beyond the "Central Plain" at this point in time (early Zhou dynasty, aka Western Zhou period).

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ohea t1_j2kmxwc wrote

Not in the 10th century BC it didn't. Back then, modern Beijing/Hebei was just about the northern limit of Chinese civilization.

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