Vincent van Gogh\u2019s \u201cThe Starry Night\u201d may have been based on one specific night sky: July 22, 1889, just before dawn over France.<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s true, it means the famous painting was based on real observations, not just van Gogh\u2019s imagination, astronomer Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim and colleagues report October 22 in Scientific Reports<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cHow could an invented sky fit the sky of a particular date this closely?\u201d the team writes. \u201cObservation and imagination have commonly been treated as an either\/or, yet \u2018The Starry Night\u2019 shows the two coexisting on one canvas.\u201d<\/p>\n