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CHINA> Photo
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China prepares for the solar eclipse
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-22 00:22 BEIJING: Many Chinese people were busy Tuesday getting preparing for the longest total solar eclipse visible in Asia in a century.
According to Li Jing, a research fellow with the National Astronomical Observatories (NAO), some astronomy fans even planned to watch the eclipse in their cars. If weather conditions are not favorable, they will change their observation venue.
SUPERSTITION AND HISTORY In ancient China, people believed that a solar eclipse occurred when a celestial dog swallowed the sun. One of China's old history Shangshu, the Book of Documents, recorded a story from China's Xia Dynasty (21st-16th century BC). Once in an autumn, when farmers were working on the fields, they saw a darkness swallow the sun. People ran and knocked on their basins or gongs in an attempt to scare the "celestial dog" away. The emperor ordered his ministers to kneel and beg the gods to pardon them for their mistakes. When the eclipse was over, the emperor immediately ordered the governor in charge of astronomy be beheaded. In the Han Dynasty, the emperors would reflect on their policies in case of solar eclipse. They reduced or exempted the taxes, helped the impoverished and remitted the criminals, said Yan Feng, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science & Vie. Solar eclipses were also seen as a sign of loss in battles, Yan said. Ancient astronomers began to understand the cause of solar eclipses in the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD), when they knew that when the moon moved between the sun and the earth, it cast a shadow. Those people in the shadow would see the sun as eclipsed. |
