{"id":15202863,"date":"2026-07-09T19:52:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T23:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/to-ancient-astronomers-theta-eridani-was-brighter-for-a-thousand-years-now-we-know-why\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:33:46","slug":"to-ancient-astronomers-theta-eridani-was-brighter-for-a-thousand-years-now-we-know-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/to-ancient-astronomers-theta-eridani-was-brighter-for-a-thousand-years-now-we-know-why\/","title":{"rendered":"To Ancient Astronomers, Theta Eridani Was Brighter For A Thousand Years. Now We Know Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/article_images\/Theta_Eridani_DSS_20260709_161537.jpg\" alt=\"Theta Eridani was considered one of the thirteen brightest stars by ancient astronomers, but it&apos;s not that luminous now. That mismatch has puzzled modern day astronomer, who&apos;ve struggled to understand the discrepancy. But modern observations show it&apos;s actually a triple star system, and mass transfer between the stars can explain its ancient luminosity. Image Credit: STScI\/DSS\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ptolemy and al-Sufi were keen ancient astronomers, one in Greece and one in Persia, whose observations were separated by almost a thousand years. They both noted that the star Theta Eridani was far brighter than it is today. Now we know why.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inmi-source\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/articles\/to-ancient-astronomers-theta-eridani-was-brighter-for-a-thousand-years-now-we-know-why\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Universe Today<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ptolemy and al-Sufi were keen ancient astronomers, one in Greece and one in Persia, whose observations were separated by almost a thousand years. They both noted that the star Theta Eridani was far brighter than it is today. Now we\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15202865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15202863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537.webp",998,1000,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-300x301.webp",300,301,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-620x621.webp",620,621,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-768x770.webp",768,770,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-940x942.webp",940,942,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537.webp",998,1000,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537.webp",998,1000,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-998x665.webp",998,665,true],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-670x446.webp",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-998x894.webp",998,894,true],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-510x510.webp",510,510,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-160x160.webp",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-24x24.webp",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-48x48.webp",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15202863-theta_eridani_dss_20260709_161537-300x300.webp",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/articles\/news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">All News<\/a>","tag_info":"All News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15202863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15202864,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202863\/revisions\/15202864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15202865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15202863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15202863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15202863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}