Mysterious Greek Device Found To Be Astronomical Computer

The Antikythera Mechanism may be the world's oldest computer. Image: By Marsyas CC BY 2.5
The Antikythera Mechanism may be the world's oldest computer. Image: By Marsyas CC BY 2.5

Thanks to a decade worth of high-tech imaging, the use of the ancient device called the Antikythera Mechanism can now be confirmed. The device, which was discovered over a century ago in an ancient shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera, was used as an astronomical computer.

Archaeologists long suspected that the device was connected to astronomy, but most of the writing on the instrument was indecipherable, which left some question. But a thorough, decade long effort using high-tech scanning methods has revealed much more of the text on the instrument.

The Antikythera Mechanism has about 14,000 characters of text on its mangled, time-weary body. Since its discovery over 100 years ago, very little of that text was readable, only a few hundred characters. It hinted at astronomical use, but detail remained frustratingly out of reach.

Now, the team behind this effort confirms that the mechanism was an astronomical calendar. It showed the position of the planets, the position of the Sun and Moon in the zodiac, the phases of the Moon, and it also predicted eclipses.

According to the team, it was like a teaching tool, or a kind of philosopher’s guide to the galaxy.

A 2007 recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism. Image: I, Mogi, CC BY 2.5
A 2007 recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism. Image: I, Mogi, CC BY 2.5

The characters were engraved on the front and back sections of the device, and on the inside covers. Some of the writing was very small, only about 1.2 mm (1/20th of an inch) tall. The device itself was about the size of an office box file. It was contained in a wooden box, and was operated with a handle crank.

At the time that it was found, the device was largely an afterthought. The real find at the time was luxury glassware and ceramics, and statues made of bronze and marble found at the shipwreck by sponge divers. But the device attracted attention over the years as different scholars hypothesized what the mechanism was for and how the gears worked.

Professor Mike Edmunds, of Cardiff University, is the Chair of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. He said, “This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully.”

In fact, a device of this complexity did not appear anywhere for another thousand years.

The device itself is incomplete. The fragments that were found came from a shipwreck discovered in 1901. That ship was a mid-1st century BC ship, a large one for its time at 40 meters (130 ft) long. It’s hoped that additional fragments of the device can be found by architects visiting the original shipwreck. But event though it’s incomplete, most of the inscriptions are there, as are 20 gears that displayed planets.

According to the team responsible for imaging the text on the device, almost all of the text on the device’s 82 fragments has been deciphered. It remains to be seen if any other surviving fragments, if found, will contain more text, and if that text will shed any more light on this remarkable device.

Rocket Launches Into an Aurora to Study Auroral Swirls

On March 3, 2014 the The Ground-to-Rocket Electrodynamics – Electron Correlative Experiment (GREECE) sounding rocket launched straight into an aurora from the Poker Flat Research Range in Poker Flat, Alaska. Credit: NASA

If you’ve ever wondered what makes the aurora take on the amazing forms it does you’ve got company. Marilia Samara and the crew of aurora researchers at Alaska’s Poker Flat Range head up the NASA-funded Ground-to-Rocket Electrodynamics-Electrons Correlative Experiment, or GREECE. Their mission is to understand what causes the swirls seen in very active auroras. 

Robert Michell, who built some of the instruments on the sounding rocket, and Marilia Samara, the principal investigator for the GREECE project. Credit: NASA
Robert Michell, who built some of the instruments on the sounding rocket, and Marilia Samara, the principal investigator for the GREECE project. Credit: NASA

“Our overarching goal is to study the transfer of energy from the sun to Earth,” said Samara, a space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI, in San Antonio, Texas. “We target a particular manifestation of that connection – the aurora.”

Here’s what we know. Electrons and protons from the sun come charging into Earth’s magnetic domain called the magnetosphere and strike and energize molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere between 60 and 200 miles overhead. The molecules release that extra energy as the greens, reds and purples of the northern lights.

Earth has a magnetic field much like an ordinary refrigerator magnet but shaped by charged particles – electrons and protons – flowing from the sun called the solar wind. When those particles travel down the field lines and excite atmospheric gases, they create the familiar parallel rays seen in auroras. Credit: Greg Shirah and Tom Bridgman, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio (left); Bob King (right)
Earth has a magnetic field much like an ordinary refrigerator magnet but shaped by charged particles flowing from the sun called the solar wind. When those particles travel down the planet’s magnetic field lines and excite atmospheric gases, they create the familiar parallel rays seen in auroras. Credit: Greg Shirah and Tom Bridgman, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio (left); Bob King (right)

And those picket-fence, parallel rays that can suddenly spring from a quiet arc are created by billions of electrons spiraling down individual magnetic field lines, crashing into atoms and molecules as they go. Because the lines of magnetic force are closely bunched, as shown in the illustration above, we see side-by-side, tightly spaced rays.

What we less about is how the twists, swirls and eddies form.

Wave clouds forming over Mount Duval, Australia from a Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability. Credit: GRAHAMUK / English language Wikipedia
Wave clouds forming over Mount Duval, Australia from a Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability. Credit: GRAHAMUK / English language Wikipedia

Scientists suspect the swirls may take shape as a result of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities or Alfven waves. The first occurs when two fluids or gases moving at different rates of speed flow by one another. In a familiar example, wind blowing over water creates ripples that are amplified into curling, white-topped waves.

Alfven waves are created when flows of electrified particles from the sun (plasma) interact with Earth’s magnetic field. To study the structures, sounding or research rockets are launched directly into an active display of northern lights to gather electrical and magnetic measurements. At the same time, cameras on the ground record the dance of rays and arcs above. Samilla and her team at GREECE then compare the aurora’s shifting shapes with real-time data gathered during the rocket’s 600 seconds of flight.

Still and video cameras on the ground simultaneously image the aurora as the instrument-laded rocket flies directly into the aurora to gather data. Credit: Marilia Samara / Robert Michell / SwRI
Still and video cameras on the ground simultaneously image the aurora as the instrument-laded rocket flies into the aurora to gather data. Credit: Marilia Samara / Robert Michell / SwRI

“Auroral curls are visible from the ground with high-resolution imaging,” said Samara. “And we can infer from those observations what’s happening farther out. But to truly understand the physics we need to take measurements in the aurora itself.”


Poker Flat rocket launch – Jason Ahrns

And that’s exactly what the team did this past Monday morning March 3. Conditions looked good from Poker Flat the previous evening with a flurry of red and green arcs after sunset. At about 2:10 a.m. Alaska time, after careful monitoring of activity,  the order was given to launch.

“It was a wonderful auroral event,” said Kathe Rich, Poker Flat Range manager. “We got good data throughout the flight, and all the instruments worked.”

Time exposure showing the trail of the rocket after it was launched into the aurora over Poker Flat early Monday morning March 3, 2014. Credit: Jason Ahrns
Time exposure showing the trail of the rocket after it was launched into the aurora over Poker Flat early Monday morning March 3, 2014. Credit: Jason Ahrns

The rocket soared to an altitude of 220 miles (354 km) and recorded data as the video and still cameras whirred on the ground during the 10 minute 15 second long flight.

There must be a bunch of happy scientists at the Range this week. They have their work cut out for them; those few minutes of data collecting will mean years of work to track down the cause of the beautiful curlicues that make our hearts leap at the sight.

Happy researchers at the Poker Flat Research Range. Credit: Lex Wingfield / NASA
Happy researchers at the Poker Flat Research Range. Credit: Lex Wingfield / NASA

Poker Flat Research Range, the world’s only scientific rocket launching facility owned by a university, is located about 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska and is operated by the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute under contract with NASA. Most of the research there involves the aurora with sounding rocket launches done about once a year. While waiting for the right moment to launch, members of the team exercise their poetic side by writing and sharing haikus about their beloved aurora. Here’s a sampling, and there are more HERE.

Dim, wide green madness
Electromagnetic ghost
Surrender your soul
– EM

Hey elusive arc
Zenith is over there, dude
It’s about damn time
-EM

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
So ready to launch!
-JC

While the cause of auroras is understood, what causes the swirl shapes is an open question. University of Alaska researchers at Poker Flat hope to find an answer. Aurora photographed on Dec. 15, 2012 from Tromso, Norway. Credit: Ole Salomonsen
While the cause of auroras is understood, what causes the swirl shapes is an open question. University of Alaska researchers at Poker Flat hope to find an answer. Aurora photographed on Dec. 15, 2012 from Tromso, Norway. Credit: Ole Salomonsen