The text describes a "five-colored light" seen in the northern night sky at the end of the king's reign
Before this, the oldest records of auroras were those inscribed by Assyrian astronomers on cuneiform tablets that dated back to between 679 and 655 BC.
Researchers have discovered this colorful detailin the Bamboo Annals (Zhúshū Jìnián in Mandarin), a fourth-century BC text written on bamboo tablets that recounts legendary and early Chinese history. Although scientists had been familiar with these texts for some time, a fresh look at this particular section led scientists to believe that this was the earliest aurora to be described.
A variant of a fragment of the Bamboo Annals. Image courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan
A recently analyzed description of the "five-colorlight" likely refers to a geomagnetic storm, the study authors said. According to NASA, they occur when the Sun spews huge bubbles of electrified gas that travel through space at high speeds.
The Earth's magnetosphere usually protects the planet fromenergetic charged particles from the Sun, but sometimes they penetrate through it and cause magnetic disturbances known as geomagnetic storms. Such storms can produce beautiful lights—oxygen glows green and red, while nitrogen emits blue and purple light.
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