Ancient poem reveals historic supernova

A medieval Arabic verse offers new clues to explosion's date and position

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It's a source of some frustration that the last time we spotted a supernova in the Milky Way Galaxy – all the way back in 1604 – no one had a telescope to point at it. We have to content ourselves with studying the remnants of previous supernovae, which at least tell us how these spectacular explosions affected their surroundings.

Such observations are more valuable the more we know about the supernovae themselves. There are a few contemporary observations from Europe – Kepler spotted that 1604 event, for example – but mostly we rely on Japanese and Chinese records.

This month's paper makes a good case for Arabic observations of two historical supernovae: a bright event in 1006, which was widely seen; and a less well-known one in 1181 or 1182, which may have been hiding in plain sight. The observations are contained in a poem which the authors – Arabists and an astronomer, working together – believe they can, for the first time, reliably date.