Lights in Heaven

I have pondered for decades about the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite in Helaman 14:3.

And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.

I wondered where those lights might have come from, what sort of astronomical event could have triggered them and had them appear exactly when Christ was born. I also wondered about the prophecy in Matthew about the star which heralded Christ's birth. In Matthew 2:2, it states:

Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

And then in verse 9:

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

How was it that a star traveled around?

And I also had heard arguments against the Christ story stating that Chinese astronomers never recorded a new star in the time around when Christ was born, so this kind of prediction about a star could not be possible.

A relatively near star dying as a supernova could potentially flare to a level of visibility to give a ton of light for maybe a night. And then that star would fade out over the next few weeks or months. But that star would be visible to anyone in the northern hemisphere, so Chinese astronomers would definitely be able to see the star even if they didn't see the supernova.

I thought for sure that a supernova would explain the recorded events, but I found it harder and harder to justify this theory. And so I wondered if maybe we were misinterpreting things.

One little factoid I learned a long time ago is that the word "planet" comes from Greek and means "wanderer" or "wandering star". So what if the term "star" just meant some sort of heavenly light. Maybe the original terms were mis-transcribed or misinterpreted and so we just ended up with the word "star" in the scriptures.

Some people have theorized that the Christmas star is an alignment of planets making a temporarily extra-bright star. This is somewhat plausible, and may explain part of movement of the star for the wise men.

And although this explanation seems to help, I struggle to believe that this alignment is the new star that people saw, especially since they would know that planets lined up that way and that those planets quickly got out of alignment.

So I started thinking further afield.

What if the star was actually some sort of shiny asteroid that got caught in geosynchronous orbit so it stayed in a relatively stable location in the heavens and was visible while not in the earth's shadow?

Or maybe this temporary satellite orbited at a closer distance but again, was only visible for portions of the day like man-made satellites in the early evening.

Somewhat plausible, but it doesn't explain Samuel the Lamanite's prophecy. There could be two independent celestial events which happened concurrently to explain these phenomena, but such coincidences seem unlikely. The two events would need to be sufficiently common that once in a long while they align.

And then, one day, while thinking about the phrase "great lights in heaven", I realized that Mormon is telling a story using reformed Egyptian. That language may not have the words to exactly describe what he is talking about. Mormon often talks around concepts or names for what seems to me to be because of the difficulty of writing in reformed Egyptian.

So what, then, would "great (large or impactful) lights in heaven" be, if he used more modern words? A comet? A shooting star? What else happens in the sky like that?

Aurora borealis.

That could be it! It's large and it's in the heaven. It's something which could be localized to the Americas and wouldn't leave a trace for Chinese astronomers. It just would have to be concurrent with some other celestial event.

But do the streams ever get bright enough to make the night seem like day? The light generated is from charged particles from the sun hitting the earth's magnetic field, so it's basically generating light the same way florescent lights do. But I doubt that it could ever be that bright. I've only ever seen the aurora borealis once while driving through Idaho as a teenager, and when I saw them they were faint red whisps in the distance. If the Nephite civilization was based in Central America as many scientists believe, they would definitely never see the aurora borealis.

Intriguing idea, but maybe not the truth. We do not know exactly where the Nephite civilization was located; we just have theories.

And I still cannot explain the travelling star.

As I continued to ponder this option, one day I stumbled upon something called the Carrington event. It happened in September of 1859 and caused all sorts of havoc across the US. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally, sparked fires in telegraph stations, caused some people to start making breakfast because they thought it was morning, and, to quote one observer:

The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested.

This event was the result of a significant geomagnetic storm and was basically a super-strong aurora borealis which was visible as far south as southern Mexico, Hawaii, and Japan.

And later I learned about the "Heartland theory" which states that the events of the Book of Mormon likely occurred near the Great Lakes which are also known as the inland seas. This would put the Nephites and Lamanites in a position where they could see the aurora borealis, possibly somewhat regularly, and would make it possible to see an event like this (possibly an even stronger one) with clarity. And it wouldn't necessarily last long enough to show up in that intensity around the globe.

Cool!

So what about this moving star which pinpoint's the location of Christ? I still wasn't sure about a plausible explanation, but I could still keep my eyes open to possibilities. Maybe it was a concurrent asteroid temporarily trapped in orbit.

And then this last week I learned about a celestial event called "Steve". This event is apparently a rare version of the aurora borealis, looks "visually different from auroras," happens concurrently with an aurora borealis, shows up further south than an aurora borealis, and can appear suddenly, move around, and "appears as a streak of mauve-colored light accompanied by distinctive green bands, often referred to as a picket fence." Interesting. It's also a phenomenon which is more likely to occur near an equinox, which is proximal to what scholars believe is when Christ was born: in or around April. 

A super strong aurora borealis now seems to me to be a more-plausible explanation for all of these events recorded in scripture. An event like this wouldn't be just a random coincidence with the Lamanite "lights in heaven" but would instead be a correlated event.

Definitely something to think about and consider.