A 200-year-old magazine revealed a rare sunspot record in the United States.

The journal of Jonathan Fisher 200 years ago revealed sunspots in 18 16 "a year without summer". Most journals are written in code, but scientific observation is not. (Jonathan Fisher Memorial) A 200-year-old journal found in a small house in Maine rarely shows the face of the sun long ago.

These ancient pages are only a small part of the early solar observations in the United States, and astronomers say they can provide important information for the solar activity cycle.

18 16 years, the northern hemisphere experienced what many people call "a year without summer". Jonathan Fisher is a church minister. He studied at Harvard University before he became a priest. He thinks maybe the sun is the culprit. So, 18 16 June, he began to describe sunspots in detail in his diary. "For me, it's sunspots on the nearest star on earth," Michael Mycroft, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Space Magazine by email.

Fisher is a special case because he was born too early. Mcavo and William Denig, a solar scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), wrote a paper on sunspot discovery in Fisher magazine.

"As a scientist, he will be very happy," McHoss said, but the scientific cause of the new America didn't exist until 18 15, and he went to Harvard in 1789 and graduated in 1792, but he never dreamed of absorbing a lot of science and mathematics along the way. 1865438+In April, 2005, Tamboura volcano erupted, spewing volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide into the air, forming aerosol, which prevented sunlight from flowing. The resulting sudden drop in temperature led to agricultural losses in Europe and North America, leading to widespread famine.

According to Danny and McVeigh, gentleman scientists all over the world speculate that the sun plays a key role in extreme temperature changes and don't know the connection between volcanic eruption and weather. At that time, the number of sunspots on the sun was very small, which seems to strengthen this hypothesis, because the sun is experiencing the smallest part of its 1 1 annual activity cycle.

"Because he is a highly educated person, it is likely that Fisher realized the connection between the hypothesized low temperature and sunspots," wrote the authors, whose paper was published in the July issue of Space Weather. 18 16 In June, heavy snow covered his home in Blue Mountain, Maine. Two weeks later, Fisher began to describe sunspots in his magazine. He continued to paint until the weather returned to normal in the summer of 18 17.

"It was the weather that triggered his observation, not the sunspot itself," McVeigh said.

Europe, on the other hand, is proud of its national and royal observers, such as Sir William Herschel, who made some solar observations in the cold summer-dozens of professional astronomers believe that this young country on the other side of the ocean has not yet established such a community.

"The new United States doesn't sponsor science-it doesn't have any science foundation, nor does it have a tradition of attaching importance to science-so the record of sunspots depends on those who may be looking up at the sky. Mcavo said: "There were not many sunspots at that time, because science was not a major. Before 18 16, only a few people in the United States observed sunspots, and Fisher was the only person who recorded sunspots in this area that year. ".[Sun Q&A: How much do you know about our grandson? ]

Another sample from Jonathan Fisher magazine. (Jonathan Fisher Memorial Hall) Fisher's diary, which is hidden in the password, has not been hidden for centuries, but is proudly displayed in his historical hometown. But when he was young, he invented a password, which made his log difficult to crack.

Fisher was born in 1768. When his father, a revolutionary war soldier, died, Fisher went to his uncle, a priest's home. 1788, Fisher's widowed mother pooled money to send him to Harvard University, where he was enthusiastic about his studies.

There, Fisher designed a shorthand code and used it in his diary. His biographer Mary Allen Chase once wrote, "He always respects his achievements" (in her book Parsons, Maine, Jonathan Fisher, 1768- 1847). However, Fisher has prepared the key.

Many of us take the sun for granted and seldom think about it before it burns our skin or enters our eyes. But our star is a fascinating and complicated object, a huge nuclear fusion reactor that gives us life. What do you know about the sun? "Decisive battle sun; How much do you know about our hot sun?

"It was not until 1940 that anyone had the patience to decipher his shorthand and copy what he wrote," said Macrosco.

McRoy is a summer resident of the Blue Mountains in Maine and a tour guide for the Jonathan Fisher family. When preparing a series of speeches on "A Year Without Summer", he consulted the illustrated digital copies of Fisher's periodical translation to learn the pastor's comments.

"Then I decided to look at the original. They're still in Fisher's house. I found that he drew these regular pictures of the sun in his diary to help him clarify his theory about sunspots and their relationship with bad weather, "McSoren said. "These photos can now be found on NOAA's website, providing another way to track the evolution of sunspots over time.

"Knowledge about the solar cycle depends on as much information as we can for a long time," McSoren said, and Fisher's observation contributed to it in a completely new and absolutely unparalleled way.

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