Is the Star Manual of Master Shi the oldest known astronomical catalog? Experts are divided.

© CPA Media Pte Ltd via AlamyThe Dunhuang map (not the chart studied in the new research) is an early star map from China dating to the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618 to 907).
The oldest star chart in the world was made in China more than 2,300 years ago, a hotly debated preprint study finds.Researchers at the Chinese National Astronomical Observatories analyzed the "Star Manual of Master Shi," the oldest surviving star catalog in China, using a novel digital image processing technique. The method, called Generalized Hough Transform, uses a type of artificial intelligence known as computer vision to find and mitigate significant errors between similar images.
They found that the ancient star chart actually dates to 355 B.C. — 250 years earlier than previously thought — and that it was later updated around A.D. 125.
This would make it the oldest-known star catalog of its kind in the world, predating a star chart by ancient
Greek astronomer Hipparchus by more than 200 years.
"I think this is pretty definitive,"said
David Pankenier, a professor emeritus of Chinese astronomy at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who was not involved with the research. Pankenier told Live Science that the study confirms previous research — notably, the work of
Joseph Needham, a British biochemist known for his expertise on ancient Chinese science and technology. And the new study places the manuscript's origin around the same time the historical Master Shi Shen was thought to have lived.
But other experts are less convinced.
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