科学家发现最古老的星图

　　30 October 2022
　　研究人员称他们在古文档中发现最古老星图的一部分。
　　这些文档在埃及基督教中心称修道院中。文档创建在动物皮上，叫羊皮纸，这是古代保持记录的方法。文档包含基督教著作。但是考察羊皮纸的科学家发现在同张纸下有其它著作。在当时由于纸短缺 这是常见的情况。
　　考察羊皮纸的研究人员发现其它著作与天文学有关。他们鉴定 这篇著作是古希腊天文 学家希帕克斯的。
　　希帕克斯也是创造三角函数公式的数学家。他也在2000年前因创造第一个星图而著名。研究人员估计他研究太空星图在公元前129年。
　　历史学家知道希帕克斯的星图是从后来其他天文学家的著作中所描述的。他的原著被认为丟失。近来发现的一部分被报道在天文学历史杂志中(the  Journal for the History of Astronomy .) 。
　　Researchers say they have discovered part of the oldest known map of the stars in an ancient document.
　　The document was first found in a Christian center, called a monastery, in Egypt. It was made of a material created from animal skin, called parchment, that was commonly used for keeping records in ancient times.
　　The document contained Christian writings. But scientists who examined the parchment discovered additional writings that appeared underneath on the same parchment. It was common practice at the time to keep using the same parchment to create new writings because the paper could be in short supply.
　　The researchers who examined the parchment found writings related to astronomy. They identified the writings as being created by an ancient Greek astronomer named Hipparchus.
　　Hipparchus was also a mathematician and is widely considered the creator of the form of math known as trigonometry. But he is also famous for creating what is believed to be the first map of the stars more than 2,000 years ago. Researchers estimate his observations of the sky were mapped around 129 BC.
　　Historians knew about Hipparchus＂ map because it was described by other astronomers in later writings. But his own star descriptions were thought to be long lost. The discovery of what is believed to be part of his long-sought star map was recently reported in a study in the  Journal for the History of Astronomy .