Medieval monks wrote over a copy of an ancient star catalog. Now, a particle accelerator is revealing the long-lost original text

The scribe who copied Phaenomena, which details how various constellations rise and set, onto the parchment integrated descriptions of the stars’ positions that were probably based on Hipparchus’ work. The celestial objects’ coordinate system and accuracy align with references to the ancient astronomer’s writings, reports Science News’ Adam Mann. “There’s an appendix which includes coordinates of the stars discussed in the poem, and then little sketches of the star maps,” Minhal Gardezi, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who is working on the project, tells the outlet.