Aboriginal observation of variable stars (Betelgeuse, Antares)
Observación aborigen de estrellas variables (Betelgeuse, Antares)
- Date
- documentado en 1857; tradición oral anterior · confidence low
- Place
- Lake Tyrrell, Victoria, Australia
- Credited to
- Boorong (Wotjobaluk) people; recorded by William Stanbridge
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The Boorong of north-western Victoria ascribed a changing brightness to Betelgeuse, Antares and other red stars and tied it to behaviour and cycles in their cosmology. Their accounts, recorded by William Stanbridge in 1857, seem to record changes that Western astronomy described as red-giant variability.
Hamacher (2018) interprets traditions from several peoples as evidence that they observed Betelgeuse and Antares variability before the Western record (1836 for Betelgeuse). The inference depends on interpreting oral accounts and is debated.
What it led to
- interpretation of red-giant variability from cultural astronomy
- a reassessment of Indigenous Australian astronomies
- a record of knowledge that would otherwise have been lost