900-year-old potery records supernova, uses number 23

With thanks to Dave O. for pointing this out:

" ... Long-sought evidence of a massive star explosion 900 years ago apparently has been found in a painting on an ancient piece of pottery excavated from an Indian village in southwestern New Mexico, University of Texas scientists reported Tuesday.

In an event so violent that debris from the blast still can be seen today, the explosion of the star created a giant cloud of gas and dust known as the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus.

Chinese and Japanese astronomers recorded the exploding star, known as a supernova, and those ancient records say the explosion was so bright it could be seen even in daylight for 23 days. A star explodes when it has nearly exhausted its fuel and collapses in on itelf and then erupts violently.

Astronomers have long, searched for a similar record of the Crab supernova in the West, but no unambigious evidence has ever been found.

However astronomer Robert Robbins and one of his students, Russell B. Westmoreland, both of the University of Texas at Austin, told the American Astronomical Society meeting in Albuquerque that. they believe they have finally found a record of the supernova in a "burial plate^*" found at the site of the village of Galaz, home to a group of Indians known as the Mimbres.

The plate shows a sunlike object with 23 rays extending outward. Robbins said that is the only object among the 800 or so that he found that used the number 23, and he doubts that was happenstance because the Mimbres seem to have paid close attention to numerology in all their other works.

Robbins believes the 23 rays stand for the 23 days the supernova was visible. "I'm quite confident" of the finding, Robbins said. "The bowl is the most certain record of the supernova that has ever been discovered outside China and Japan." ... "

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