• 한국지구과학회지
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• 제29권5호
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• pp.408-418
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• 2008

In this study, solar eclipse records were investigated during the Three Kingdoms era of ancient Korea using astronomical calculations and numerical simulations. Under the condition that the solar eclipses were actually observed at the well known capitals of the Three Kingdoms, I investigated the probabilities that the optimal observation areas of the Early Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje records would appear around Chinese continent. I found higher probabilities than those suggested by Park and La (1994), although the numerical values are still low, especially in the case of the Early Silla records. On the other hand, the probability that the optimal observation area of the Later Silla records will be present around South Korea is only 13.6%, although the area shows a good match with the known capital. I also analyzed the number distribution of the eclipse records for the Three Kingdoms (except for the latter Silla's) according to the observers' locations: at the optimal observation areas and at the known capitals. And then I compared with the number distribution of all eclipses observable from those locations. From the $\chi^2$-test, I found that the Goguryeo and Baekje records had better representation of their population distributions at the latter regions ($\chi^2$=27.93 and 205.5) than at the former ones ($\chi^2$=34.19 and 211.5). Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that the observers' locations during the Three Kingdoms period were either near China, as suggested by Park and La, or in the Korean peninsula, solely based on these results. It is thus recommended that more studies are required to confirm the real observers' locations during the Three Kingdoms era.

• 천문학논총
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.65-71
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• 2008

It has been considered that 'exhausted eclipses' (日食旣) were total eclipses. However, modern precise calculations show that a significant fraction of such records are not realized to be total. Thus we doubt that the two concepts are equivalent. Here we investigate the meaning of 'exhausted eclipses' in the east-Asian history. We first find that eclipses of magnitude greater than 0.8 were regarded as 'exhausted eclipses' by a Korean astronomer of the 18th-century Choson dynasty. His notion was based upon the definition of 'exhausted eclipses' in the ephemerides of pre-modern Chinese dynasties. According to those ephemerides, the 'exhausted eclipses', whose magnitude is greater than 0.8, have the first contact at the western part of the solar disk and the fourth contact at the eastern part of the solar disk. A simple geometrical calculation shows that such cases really occur when the magnitude of eclipse is greater than 0.7. We pointed out that such an ancient definition might not be impractical for ancient astronomers, because the uncertainty of eclipse magnitude estimated by ancient Chinese ephemerides was 10% and the human sight has a spatial resolution of 1.2 arcmin, which is approximately one twentieth of the Sun's angular diameter.

• 천문학논총
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.17-28
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• 2012

We present an analysis of the papers published in the journals Nature and Science in the years from 2006 to 2010. During this period, 7788 papers in total were published in the two journals. This includes 544 astronomy papers that correspond to 7.0% of the papers in 'all' research fields and 18.9% of those in the field of 'physical sciences'. The sub-fields of research of the astronomy papers are distributed, in a descending order of the number of papers, in Solar System, stellar astronomy, galaxies and the universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and exoplanets. The observational facilities used for the studies are mainly ground-based telescopes (31.1%), spacecrafts (27.0%), and space telescopes (22.8%), while 16.0% of papers did not use any noticeable facilities and 1.7% used other facilities. Korean scientists have published 86 papers (33 in Nature and 53 in Science), which is 1.10% of all the papers (N = 7788) in the two journals. The share of papers by Korean astronomers among the scientific papers by Koreans is 8.14%, slightly higher than the contribution of astronomy papers (7.0%) in both journals.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.215-223
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• 2014

In this paper, we report the analysis of Korean historical records on the periodic Halley's comet according to the period (i.e., the Three Kingdoms, Goryeo Dynasty, and Joseon Dynasty) using various sources such as the Samguksagi (The History of the Three Kingdoms), Goryeosa (The History of the Goryeo Dynasty), and Joseonwangjosillok (The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty). With regards to the apparition time of the comet for each return, we referred to the works of Kronk. For the Three Kingdoms period, we could not find any record relevant to Halley's comet from the Samguksagi. Furthermore, we examined the suggestion that the phenomenon of "two Suns" which appeared on April 1, 760 (in a luni-solar calendar), as recorded in the Samgukyusa (The Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms), indicates an instance of the the daytime appearance of Halley's comet. In contrast with the Three Kingdoms period, we found that all returns of Halley's comet are recorded during the Goryeo Dynasty, although others have questioned some accounts. We also found that the appearance of Halley's comet in 1145 is mentioned in a spirit-path stele made in 1178. For the Joseon Dynasty period, we found that all apparitions of the comet are recorded, as with the Goryeo Dynasty, except for the return of 1910, at which time the former dynasty had fallen. In conclusion, we think that this study will be helpful for understanding Korean historical accounts on Halley's comet.

• 천문학논총
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• 제37권3호
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• pp.59-79
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• 2022

We investigated the records of astronomical phenomena in the Hyeonjong-Donggung-Ilgi written by the educational office for a crown prince, Sigang-won, during the time of a crown prince of the king Hyeonjong (i.e., from 1649 to 1659). Of the total of 3,625 days, 3,044 astronomical accounts were compiled from astronomical records of 2,003 days. We classified these astronomical accounts into 16 items, grouped into five categories, and statistically analyzed each group. In our analysis, the accounts for atmos-pheric optical phenomena equates to 57.9% of the total, and for celestial phenomena visible during the daytime the percentage is 17.3%. The records related to the approach between two objects such as planets, moon, and stars account for 3.3%, and solar or lunar eclipses take up 0.6%. The ratio of accounts regarding meteor, comet, and fire light (火光) stand at 13.8%, 0.30%, and 6.8%, respectively. Sunny days account for 71.1% of all days per year during this period. We determined that the distribution of the fire light by month is similar to that of the solar halo. We also found that the astronomical records from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty correspond to only 30% of those of the Hyeonjong-Donggung-Ilgi for the same period. In particular, the phenomena of celestial objects occurring outside the atmosphere are transmitted to the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in a higher proportion than the phenomena inside the air. It is therefore necessary to use a historical diary like a Donggung-Ilgi to interpret the phenomena in the air such as atmospheric optical events, meteor, and fire light.

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.101.2-101.2
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• 2012

An asteroid family is a population of asteroids in the proper orbital element space (a, e, i), considered to have been produced by a disruption of a large parent body presumably through a catastrophic collision. Asteroid families offer unique opportunities to reconstruct and characterize the break-up history of airless bodies in the main-belt. The Maria family is a typical old population (~3${\pm}$1 Gyr) of asteroids that have undergone significant collisional and dynamical evolution in the history of the inner Solar System; it is also believed to be one of the candidate source regions for giant S-type near-earth asteroids (NEAs). However, to date, physical characteristics of this family members such as rotational periods have been known only for 61 of the larger asteroids among 3,230 objects, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the family. In this presentation, we provide some preliminary results of our recent study: out of more than dozen of the family members, lightcurves for eight objects have been obtained for the first time. We plan to increase the number of target objects, and investigate evidences for the Yarkovsky/YORP effect on Maria family based on our observations.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.61.3-62
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• 2016

An asteroid family is a group of asteroidal objects in the proper orbital element space (a, e, and i), considered to have been produced by a disruption of a large parent body through a catastrophic collision. Family members usually have similar surface properties such as spectral taxonomy types, colors, and visible geometric albedo with a same dynamical age. Therefore an asteroid family could be called as a natural Solar System laboratory and is also regarded as a powerful tool to investigate space weathering and non-gravitational phenomena such as the Yarkovsky/YORP effects. We carry out time series photometric observations for a number of asteroid families to obtain their physical properties, including sizes, shapes, rotational periods, spin axes, colors, and H-G parameters based on nearly round-the-clock observations, using several 0.5-2 meter class telescopes in the Northern hemisphere, including BOAO 1.8 m, LOAO 1.0 m, SOAO 0.6 m facilities in KASI, McDonald Observatory 2.1 m instrument, NARIT 2.4 m and TUG 1.0 m telescopes. This study is expected to find, for the first time, some important clues on the collisional history in our Solar System and the mechanisms where the family members are being transported from the resonance regions in the Main-belt to the near Earth space.

• 천문학논총
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• 제26권3호
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• pp.89-101
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• 2011

The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) initiated by the Thailand Astronomical Society in 2007 is an annual competition for high school students. One of its aim is to enhance the development of international exchange in the field of school education in astronomy and astrophysics. This paper first provides the overview of the IOAA in terms of key regulations based on its statutes, history and current status. Secondly, the published syllabus of the IOAA is used for content analysis according to subject areas regarding the exam questions of the IOAA in theoretical, observational and data analysis parts from 2007 to 2010. Also, a scientific inquiry framework is applied to the same questions for assessment based on scientific inquiry in the cognitive aspect with two sub-classes of scientific knowledge and scientific reasoning. Among a dozen astronomy subject areas listed on the syllabus, the theoretical part of the IOAA makes more frequent use of the Sun, the solar system, properties of stars, and concept of time. In content knowledge, a factor of scientific knowledge, the IOAA questions, especially in the theoretical part have a lesser degree in difficulty than the IAO (International Astronomy Olympiad) exam questions for the same period whose degree in difficulty is comparable to college level. With regard to scientific reasoning, the IOAA questions tend to involve convergent rather than divergent thinking. Lastly, in light of these findings, discussions are given on the outcome of Korean participation in the previous IOAAs and ways to help better in preparing Korean students for future astronomy Olympiads.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제36권2호
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• pp.87-96
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• 2019

We investigate solar and lunar motions in the Seonmyeong (SM) calendar that was compiled by Xu, Ang of the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907) in China and used for 71 years from 822 to 892. This calendar was also used in Korea during the Goryeo dynasty (A.D. 918-1392) and in Japan for 823 years from 862 to 1684, the longest time among the three countries. Referring to historical documents of China, Korea, and Japan, we analyze the calendrical methods of calculating the daily apparent movements of the Sun and Moon in the SM calendar, which were considered their unequal motions, and compare the movements with the results of modern calculations for three periods in the Goryeo dynasty: 919, 1155, and 1392 years (i.e., the beginning, middle, and ending of the dynasty, respectively). We find that a quadratic equation was employed to obtain the daily movement of the Sun using physical quantities on the instant of each solar term, which was tabulated in its calendar book such as the Goryeosa (History of the Goryeo Dynasty). For quantitative analysis, we compute the mean absolute difference (MAD) of the daily apparent movement between the SM calendar and modern calculations and obtain 0.33, 0.30, and 0.31 arcmin for the periods of 919, 1155, and 1392 years, respectively. Meanwhile, we find relatively large MAD values in the daily movement of the Moon: 0.217, 0.284, and 0.240 degrees for each corresponding year. An interesting point is that the MAD value in the lunar motion shows the maximum in 1155 years, and is the minimum in the solar motion. In conclusion, we believe that this study will facilitate in the understanding of the SM calendar further, particularly in the calendrical methods of calculating sunrise, sunset, and eclipse times.

• 천문학회보
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• 제46권2호
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• pp.58.1-59
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• 2021

Exploration of asteroids' internal structure is essential for understanding their evolutional history. It also provides a fundamental information about the history of coalescence and collision of the solar system. Among several models of the internal structures, the rubble-pile model, confirmed by the near-Earth asteroid (25143) Itokawa by Hayabusa mission [1], is now widely regarded as the most common to asteroids with size ranging from 200 m to 10 km [2]. On the contrary, monolithic and core-mantle structures are also possible for small asteroids [3]. It is, however, still challenging to look through the interior of a target object using remote-sensing devices. In this presentation, we introduce our ongoing research conducted at Seoul National and propose an idea to infer the internal structure of Apophis using available instruments. Itokawa's research provides an important benchmark for Apophis exploration because both asteroids have similar size and composition [4][5]. We have conducted research on Itokawa's evolution in terms of collision and space weathering. Space weathering is the surface alteration process caused by solar wind implantation and micrometeorite bombardment [6]. Meanwhile, resurfacing via a collision acts as a counter-process of space weathering by exposing fresh materials under the matured layer and lower the overall degree of space weathering. Therefore, the balance of these two processes determine the space weathering degrees of the asteroid. We focus on the impact evidence on the boulder surface and found that space weathering progresses in only 100-10,000 years and modifies the surface optical properties (Jin & Ishiguro, KAS 2020 Fall Meeting). It is important to note that the timescale is significantly shorter than the Itokawa's age, suggesting that the asteroid can be totally processed by space weathering. Accordingly, our result triggers a further discussion about why Itokawa indicates a moderately fresh spectrum (Sq-type denotes less matured than S-type). For example, Itokawa's smooth terrains show a weaker degree of space weathering than other S-type asteroids [7]. We conjecture that the global seismic shaking caused by collisions with >1 mm-sized interplanetary dust particles induces granular convection, which hinders the progression of space weathering [8]. Note that the efficiency of seismic wave propagation is strongly dependent on the internal structure of the asteroid. Finally, we consider possible approaches to investigate Apophis's internal structure. The first idea is studying the space weathering age, as conducted for Itokawa. If Apophis indicates a younger age, the internal structure would have more voids [9]. In addition, the 2029 close encounter with Earth provides a rare natural opportunity to witness the contrast between before and after the event. If the asteroid exhibits a slight change in shape and space weathering degree, one can determine the physical structure of the internal materials (e.g., rubble-pile monolithic, thick or thin regolith layer, the cohesion of the materials). We will also consider a possible science using a seismometer.