10/25/2026
Van Gogh didn’t invent The Starry Night’s sky. He painted a real one, just before dawn on July 22, 1889.
That’s the finding from Kyung Hee University researchers, published in Scientific Reports.
For decades the accepted story was mid-June and the faint stars of Aries. One problem. The June moon was a fat waning gibbous, and the canvas shows a slim crescent.
Move the date to July 22 and the predawn sky over Saint-Rémy finally fits. The crescent moon and Venus are both there. Then shape analysis matched five of the painting’s central stars to the V-shaped Hyades cluster in Ta**us.
The swirls were his. The stars were real.
