{"id":594558,"date":"2026-07-20T05:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/594558\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T05:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:39:13","slug":"july-19-418-a-solar-eclipse-comet-combo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/594558\/","title":{"rendered":"July 19, 418: A solar eclipse\/comet combo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tToday in the history of astronomy, an eclipse isn\u2019t the only stunning thing in the sky.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/eclipse_1-e1752701173106.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A stark, high-contrast photograph captures a solid black circle perfectly centered against a jet-black background. A bright, glowing ring of white light radiates outward from behind the dark circle, creating a soft, hazy halo with faint streaks extending into the surrounding darkness.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMany of the earliest-known human records of eclipses come from ancient China. Credit: NASA\/Gopalswamy\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">July 19, 418 C.E., marks the first total <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/science\/a-history-of-solar-eclipses\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">solar eclipse<\/a> (of which we have a record) during which a comet was seen. Turkish-born Church historian Philostorgius wrote in Book XII of the Epitome Historiae Ecclesiasticae: \u201cWhen Theodosius had reached adolescence, on the nineteenth of July at about the eighth hour, the sun was so completely eclipsed that stars appeared. There appeared in the sky with the sun while in eclipse a cone-shaped light, which some out of ignorance called a comet. But it showed none of the features of a comet. For the light did not form a tail, nor was it at all like a star; rather, it resembled a great lamp-flame appearing on its own, with no star under it to form a wick for it. Its movement was also different. It began where the sun rises at the equinox, from there passed over the last star in the Bear\u2019s tail, and went on slowly westward.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clearly, Philostorgius did not believe the object was a comet. Many reports from Europe and China, however, prove that it was, so the event goes down as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/science\/the-10-most-important-eclipses-in-history-picked-by-an-expert\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first reports of a comet seen during the total phase<\/a> of a solar eclipse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Michael E. Bakich<\/strong>\u00a0is a contributing editor for\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. With degrees in astronomy and planetarium education, he has led many eclipse tours, published several books on observing, and logged thousands of hours at the eyepiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Today in the history of astronomy, an eclipse isn\u2019t the only stunning thing in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[30162,18,19,17,133,451],"class_list":["post-594558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-eclipses","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116950701055138155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}