Celestial Matters [SEP] publisher
Celestial Matters
Celestial Matters is a science fantasy novel by American writer Richard Garfinkle, set in an alternate universe with different laws of physics. Published by Tor Books in 1996, it is a work of alternate history and elaborated "alternate science", as the physics of this world and its surrounding cosmos are based on the physics of Aristotle and ancient Chinese Taoist alchemy.
"Celestial Matters" won the 1997 Compton Crook Award for best first science fiction novel.
Setting.
In the world of "Celestial Matters
DE102 in Sep. 1977, DE111 in May 1980, DE118 in Sep. 1981, and DE200 in 1982. DE102 was the first numerically integrated so-called Long Ephemeris, covering much of history for which useful astronomical observations were available: 1141 BC to AD 3001. DE200, a version of DE118 migrated to the J2000.0 reference frame, was adopted as the fundamental ephemeris for the new almanacs starting in 1984. DE402 introduced coordinates referred to the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF).
The JPL ephemerides have been the basis of