Guest star (astronomy)

The term "guest star" is used in the context of ancient records, since the exact classification of an astronomical event in question is based on interpretations of old records, including inference, rather than on direct observations.

In ancient Chinese astronomy, guest stars were one of the three types of highly transient objects (bright heavenly bodies).

'broom star') and comets without tails (Chinese: 孛星; pinyin: beìxīng; lit.

[1] The earliest Chinese record of guest stars is contained in Han Shu (漢書), the history of Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220), and all subsequent dynastic histories had such records.

[3] Whether this was due to the weather or other reasons, astronomers have questioned why the remnant attributed to Chinese observations of a guest star in AD 1054 (see SN 1054) is missing from the European records.