Starry Night, the iconic painting by legendary Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh, has inspired debate among art historians and astronomers for decades. Was the painting something that Van Gogh was spontaneously inspired to create in the early morning hours in July 1889, or did it present a realistic depiction of the night sky over Saint-Rémy (where he painted it)? According to a recent study conducted jointly by South Korean telescope manufacturer SLLAB and the School of Space Research at Kyung Hee University, it's the latter.

For over a century and a half, scholars focused primarily on religious and symbolic interpretations of the painting. It was not until the mid-1980s that studies were presented that analyzed its astronomical aspects. These were conducted by UCLA art historian Albert Boime (1984) and Harvard astronomer Charles Whitney (1986), who examined celestial correspondences and proposed constellation identifications based on a mid-June date.…