{"id":18040,"date":"2013-09-11T21:12:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T20:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=18040"},"modified":"2024-03-15T22:10:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T22:10:03","slug":"the-sun-aint-gonna-shine-anymore-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2013\/09\/11\/the-sun-aint-gonna-shine-anymore-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) – Maybe. Polar Exploration and the Mysterious Novaya Zemlya Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Sun's<\/a>
Sun’s image distorted and elongated by atmospheric refraction \u00a9Tim Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A Polar Phenomenon<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In May 1915, Ernest Shackleton and the crew of Endurance<\/em> entered their fourth month trapped in the frozen Antarctic’s Weddell Sea. The ship’s navigator added to the gloom forecasting a sunless sky for the next seventy days.\u00a0\u00a0 You expect this at above 75\u00b0 South. Then on the 8th of May something strange happened.\u00a0 The Sun reappeared – several times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The sun, which had made “positively his last appearance” seven days earlier, surprised us by lifting more than half its disk above the horizon on May 8.  A glow on the northern horizon resolved itself into the sun at 11 a.m. that day.  A quarter of an hour later the unseasonable visitor disappeared again, only to rise again at 11.40 a.m., set at 1 p.m., rise at 1.10 p.m.. and set lingeringly at 1.20 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ernest Shackleton, 19151<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shackleton understood the effects of atmospheric refraction, that temperature and density differences can bend light, especially near the horizon. \u00a0 At sunrise and sunset the Sun’s disk may appear lengthened or flattened, or displaced from its true position in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Endurance<\/a>
Ernest Shackleton made his observations from the Endurance while frozen in the Weddell Sea (the bay top left)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Mariners knew of the phenomenon, referencing standard refraction tables to correct sextant readings for navigation; but the system broke down below about 6 degrees, where refraction increased rapidly and non-linearly.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"How<\/a>
How atmospheric refraction can make the Sun visible when it’s still below the horizon \u00a9Tim Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In this case, as Shackleton recorded in his journal, the Sun was 2 degrees and 37 minutes (2\u00b037′) from its true position, 2 degrees more than the refraction tables predicted.\u00a0 Plotting position from this observation would place the Endurance<\/em> 120 miles from its actual location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Novaya Zemlya Effect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Shackleton experienced was an extreme case of atmospheric refraction known as the Novaya Zemlya effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was first reported in 1597 by Gerrit De Veer2 <\/sup>, one of the crew on Willem Barent’s third voyage to discover a north-east passage.\u00a0 Obliged to hunker down for the polar winter in a safety hut or ‘Het Behouden Huijs<\/em>‘ built on the Novaya Zemlya island chain north of Russia, De Veer reported the return of the post-winter Sun a whole two weeks before it should have been visible. It was in fact 5\u00b026’ below the horizon.\u00a0 The same thing happened two days later, the Sun still – by the book –\u00a0 4\u00b0 below the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Novaya<\/a>
Map depicting Willem Barents three voyages to discover a North East Passage, showing the Novaya Zemlya islands (Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\"novaya1\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Novaya Zemlya effect occurs in Arctic regions where tracts of cold air remain uniquely stable over hundreds of kilometers, creating a special instance of a  meteorological temperature inversion.  The distortion, powerful enough to bend light through four or five degrees, can make celestial bodies like the Sun or Moon appear wholly above the horizon when they are physically below it.  (If you imagine looking at the horizon, five degrees is the same as ten Suns or Moons in a row.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hundreds of years, nobody believed Gerrit De Veer’s solar observations, and equally his report of a curiously displaced conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter.\u00a0 He must have counted the days wrong, or used the wrong sort of calendar.\u00a0 It took the corroborating reports of polar explorers like Shackleton and, as recently as 2003, ray-tracing simulations3 <\/sup>using contemporary atmospheric data, to fully vindicate De Veer.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Modern<\/a>
Modern almanacs still include refraction tables. (HM Nautical ALmanac Office<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Time Travel with Starry Night<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I’ve set up my own simulations of the celestial events reported by Shackleton and De Veer using the planetarium software Starry Night<\/a>.  The program can’t reproduce the ray traced refraction effects modeled by van der Werf<\/a> et al<\/a>3 <\/sup> – whose validity I’m not equipped to comment on by the way, but it’s still satisfying to check the published numbers and get a feel for what the events looked like all those years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shackleton’s Solar Observation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

First up, the view from the Endurance<\/em> in 1915:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Weddell Sea (Lat. 75 degree 23 mins S Long. 42 degree 14 mins W) 8th May, 1915, 1:20pm (UT) \u00a9Tim Jones, Starry Night Software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The horizon terrain here is generic Starry Night; apart from being icy-white, the true horizon would run perpendicular to and cross the graduated white Meridian line at zero (0) degrees.  The green line is the Ecliptic.  Things are clearer for our purposes, if less romantic, if we turn off the daylight effect and fancy terrain and zoom in a bit.  It’s now clear the Sun was below the horizon when Shackleton reported seeing it: i.e. with reference to the Meridian on the left, the Sun looks about two and half degrees below the zero degree mark (Shackleton’s 2\u00b037′):<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"shackleton-120\"<\/a>
View from Weddell Sea (Lat. 75 degree 23 mins S Long. 42 degree 14 mins W) 8th May, 1915, 1:20pm (UT). With generic landscape and daylight effect turned off \u00a9Tim Jones, Starry Night Software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Gerrit De Veer’s Solar Observation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Willem Barent’s crew, marooned 300 years earlier at the opposite end of the planet, made their observations from the ‘Behouden Huijs<\/em>‘ at co\u00f6rdinates 76\u00b0 15.4′ North 68\u00b018.6’ East, Novaya Zemlya.  This view from the Huijs<\/em> at 7 o’clock on the morning of 24th January 1597, shows the Sun was firmly below the horizon when Gerrit De Veer observed it – a whole 5\u00b026′ below (horizon is perpendicular to the zero mark on the white Meridian line, green line is the Ecliptic):<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Gerritt<\/a>
View from the rescue hut on (Lat. 76 degree 15.4 mins N Long. 68 degree 18.6 mins W) 24th Jan, 1597, 7:00 am (UT). \u00a9Tim Jones, Starry Night Software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Gerrit De Veer’s Moon-Jupiter Conjunction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Moon-Jupiter conjunction reported by De Veer physically happened at 0:14 UT on 25th January 1597 (there is a small error in the 0:24 UT time given in the contemporary tables by Scala that De Veer used).   Like astronomers today, De Veer identified the moment of conjunction as the time when a line drawn along the shadow separating light from dark on the moon’s surface, the terminator, pointed directly at Jupiter, as in this photograph I took of the Moon-Jupiter conjunction of 21 January 2012:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Moon<\/a>
Moon and Jupiter, 18:45, 21.01.2012, Los Angeles \u00a9Tim Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Starry Night simulation of the De Veer conjunction<\/h4>\n\n\n
\n
\"De<\/a>
Moon-Jupiter conjunction, 0:14 (UT) 25th Jan,1597. Location: the rescue hut on (Lat. 76 degree 15.4 mins N Long. 68 degree 18.6 mins W) \u00a9Tim Jones, Starry Night Software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Moon is barely above the horizon and Jupiter is below it (again, reference the zero on the white Meridian line).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerrit De Veer saw this view, but over an hour after it happened: i.e. at 01:27 UT not 00:14 UT.  As van der Werf’s analysis explains, De Veer reported the conjunction at 6 a.m. local time, which was 4:33 hours ahead of UT.  Such was the unbelievable power of the Novaya Zemlya effect to make this happen that few indeed believed it.   De Veer learned about the conjunction from his copy of the Ephemerides of Josephus Scala which gave times for Venice.  Here we pick up the story in De Veer’s own words and the spellings of his 1609 translator William Phillip:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Whereupon we sought to knowe when the same coniunction should be ouer or about the house where we then were; and at last we found, yt the 24 day January was the same day whereon the coniunction aforesaid happened in Venice, at one of the clocke in the night [= 1 in the morning of 25th Jan], and with vs in the morning when ye sun was in the east: for we saw manifestly that the two planets aforesaid approached neere vnto each other, vntill such time as the moone and Jupiter stood ouer the other, both in the sign of Taurus, and that was at six of the clocke in the morning;at which time the moone and Jupiter were found by our compas to be in coniunction, ouer our house..<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Gerrit De Veer 1597<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet ray tracing the scenario 400 years later, with Jupiter two degrees below the horizon and the Moon just above it at  conjunction, shows that atmospheric conditions raised Jupiter’s apparent position disproportionately to that of the Moon.  Moreover, the simulation reproduced what De Veer saw at the time he saw it: a conjunction visible to him<\/em> at around 02:00 UT.  The ray tracing team made a further minor adjustment for the Equation of Time<\/a> effect, which brought their estimate of when the conjunction was visible to De Veer as 06:20 local time, which is impressively close to his 06:00.)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Apparent<\/a>
Apparent position of Jupiter and the Moon after allowing for atmospheric refraction. Moon is double actual size for clarity. Diagram reproduced from analysis by van der Werf et al, 2003 (reference 3)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One More Thing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Although Gerrit De Veer’s vindication now seems complete, there was one little alarm bell went off during my research, concerning De Veer’s reference to both the Moon and Jupiter being in the constellation of Taurus at the time of conjunction.\u00a0 Zooming in to see the 1597 conjunction against modern constellation boundaries puts it well into Aries.\u00a0 So what gives?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"constell\"<\/a>
Modern constellation boundaries. Moon-Jupiter conjunction, 0:14 (UT) 25th Jan,1597. Location: the rescue hut on (Lat. 76 degree 15.4 mins N Long. 68 degree 18.6 mins W) \u00a9Tim Jones, Starry Night Software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Maybe the constellation boundaries have changed; let’s have a look at Albrecht D\u00fcrer’s beautiful star chart from 1515.\u00a0 Here we see the belly of the bull tucks a little further under the ram than in modern charts, but the conjunction is still firmly in Aries.\u00a0
<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Star<\/a>
Star chart of the northern skies, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, 1515, Nuremberg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Maybe the Moon made the stars in Aries harder to see that night. That might cause De Veer to focus on the sparkling Pleiades and Hyades clusters in Taurus. (I’d probably do that if I were standing in a freezing Arctic wasteland staring at the sky at six in the morning.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Beke4 <\/sup> also noticed the discrepancy in a 19th century analysis of the <\/span>William Phillip translation.\u00a0 He points to a retrogression of the equinoctial points – the places where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic. Since De Veer’s day, this will have shifted the positions of the constellations in terms of longitude and latitude relative to those references. Although that suggests De Verre placed the conjunction in whatever constellation the numbers dictated, rather than where he saw it?\u00a0 Still a bit of a mystery to solve then – at least in my mind. \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. E. Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition 1914\u20131917, MacMillan, New York, 1920<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Gerrit De Veer<\/span>, The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions (1594, 1595 and 1596). London, 1876 (translation of 1609 original).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Gerrit de Veer\u2019s True and Perfect Description of the Novaya Zemlya Effect, 24-27 January 1597, Siebren Y. van der Werf<\/a>, G\u00fcnther P. K\u00f6nnen<\/a>, Waldemar H. Lehn<\/a>, Frits Steenhuisen<\/a>, and Wayne P. S. Davidson;<\/a> Applied Optics, Vol. 42, Issue 3, pp. 379-389 (2003)http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1364\/AO.42.000379<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Charles T. Beke, The Three Voyages of Willem Barents to the Arctic Regions 1594, 1595 and 1596 by Gerrit de Veer, 2nd ed.William Phillip, trans., Hakluyt Society, London, 1876 (Page 147)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A Polar Phenomenon In May 1915, Ernest Shackleton and the crew of Endurance entered their fourth month trapped in the frozen Antarctic’s Weddell Sea. The ship’s navigator added to the gloom forecasting a sunless sky for the next seventy days.\u00a0\u00a0 You expect this at above 75\u00b0 South. Then on the 8th of May something strange … Continue reading The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) – Maybe. Polar Exploration and the Mysterious Novaya Zemlya Effect<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) - Maybe. Or how Shackleton and De Veer saw the sun that wasn't there (Zoonomian) http:\/\/wp.me\/pkpOr-4GY #histsci","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[638,102,1179,11,999],"tags":[1326,1371,627,900,1370,1373,1372,1070,1374],"class_list":["post-18040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-biography","category-geography","category-physics","category-weather","tag-conjunction","tag-gerrit-de-veer","tag-jupiter","tag-moon","tag-novaya-zemlya","tag-refraction","tag-shackleton","tag-sun","tag-weddell-sea"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkpOr-4GY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18040"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19003,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18040\/revisions\/19003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}