[time-nuts] Solstice question, about 5000 years ago

Michael Sokolov msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG
Sun Dec 21 21:25:44 UTC 2008


Bill Hawkins <bill at iaxs.net> wrote:

> The passage grave at New Grange, Ireland, is one of those astronomical
> wonders where the rising sun at winter solstice shines down a relatively
> long tunnel to shine on carved stone at the far wall of a chamber.
>
> We know that solstice has the shortest day and the longest night.
>
> How'd they know that?

I'll abstain from answering the last question, but I'm more interested
in a different question: from what I understand, the exact shape of the
analemma depends on the misalignment between the line of apses (aphelion
and perihelion of Earth's slightly eccentric orbit) and the solstices
and equinoxes defined by Earth's obliquity.  These things do change very
slowly over the course of millennia, don't they?  Isn't that change
significant enough that the correct stone alignment would be different
between today and 5000 y ago?  If they got it right 5000 y ago for their
epoch, why does it still work now?  Hasn't the analemma shifted far
enough to break the alignment?

Just wondering.

MS



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