Once every few hundred years, our skies are graced by the appearance of a brilliant new star. It can outshine the brightest objects in the sky before gradually fading from visibility over weeks to months. Western scientists call it a supernova, and it represents one of the most cataclysmic events in the universe.
Skywatching cultures the world over have recorded these new stars (novas), from as long ago as ancient China, Arabia and Korea. It is from their written records that astrophysicists first connected the appearance of novas with the nebulous shells of dead stars. New discoveries in modern astrophysics were made by looking back to ancient historical records.
Some astrophysicists looked to the archaeological record for designs and motifs that could be interpreted as supernovas. Without the people who created the motifs to explain what they mean, interpreting and understanding them is extremely difficult. Some scholars made connections between known historical supernovas and rock art, concluding
