Overview
- An international team used archaeological reports to relocate ancient Qufu by about eight kilometers, reconciling the Lu court record with modern eclipse simulations.
- With the corrected site, researchers found totality occurred over Qufu on July 17, 709 BCE, and derived ΔT between 20,264 and 21,204 seconds.
- The work, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, provides a new anchor for long‑term models of Earth’s rotational variability.
- The earliest datable total‑eclipse note comes from the Spring and Autumn Annals, with a later Hanshu quote describing the eclipsed Sun as “completely yellow above and below,” which the authors treat cautiously.
- If that description reflects the corona, its morphology aligns with reconstructions showing the Sun had resumed regular activity after the Neo‑Assyrian Grand Minimum.