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How Ancient Texts Can Shed Light on Auroras | Science| Smithsonian Magazine

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Documenting episodes of the phenomenon thousands of years ago may help us predict damaging solar storms in the future Kim Beil Rumors of a strange and terrifying event swept Japan in early September 1859. The “sky seemed to be burning,” according to one diarist. From Aomori Prefecture on the northern edge of the country’s main island to Wakayama, more than 600 miles south, the sky glowed red. Many assumed it was the light of distant fires, but no one could decide where they burned. Had a thousand houses been destroyed in Minato? Or liquor stores at Hyogo or Nishinomiya? Residents of these places assumed there’d been fires elsewhere. Koyasan, Gojo, Hashimoto and even Russia were all suggested as places that could be burning. The historian of Shingu, a city 80 miles south of Kyoto in Wakayama, noted that “red vapor” in the northern sky had also been seen 90 years earlier in September 1770. Reports during that event similarly hypothesized that the strange light was the result of faraway f

A drawing of the aurora observed from Nagoya, Japan, on September 17, 1770. The written description also notes its intensity: "as bright as a night with a full moon." MS Special 7–59, National Diet Library, ff. 6b–7a (at Nagoya). Courtesy of the National Diet Library . Rumors of a strange and terrifying event swept Japan in early September 1859. The “sky seemed to be burning,” according to one diarist. From Aomori Prefecture on the northern edge of the country’s main island to Wakayama, more than 600 miles south, the sky glowed red. Many assumed it was the light of distant fires, but no one co

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