*5,000-year-old rock art in India could be the oldest supernova evidence in human history*

*5,000-year-old rock art in India could be the oldest supernova evidence in human history*

Astrophysicist Mayank Vahia and his colleagues at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research believe people living in Burzahama, a part of Kashmir in Northern India might have been the first to carve the stellar explosion on a rock sometime around 5,000 years ago. The team has found an ancient rock with drawings of two strange cosmic objects, according to a report in Quartz.

As the carving cannot represent two Suns or a weird Sun-Moon duo, the astronomers think that one of the objects depicted is a full Moon while the other would have been a supernova in close proximity of our Solar System. Such an explosion, even if thousands of light years away, would have shined enough through the darkness of the cosmos to appear nearly as bright as the Moon.

Still, in order to confirm the supernova explosion, the team tried to date the rock art – a task that took a lot of effort. They tried hunting down all stellar explosions visible around 4100BC and 2100BC, the period when the first settlers arrived in the area. This helped them narrow down results to a supernova dubbed HB9. As the report describes, the stellar explosion would have occurred around 3600BC, appearing like a glowing ball of lightning to Earthlings who may have represented it with their creativity. This is likely to be the oldest depiction of a supernova.