Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in 1889. Its sky has bright stars and a thin Moon. Experts usually say he painted it in June. A letter to his brother Theo mentions a new picture of a starry sky around 18 June. Van Gogh was staying in a hospital in southern France.
Now, a team from South Korea has a different idea. Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim led the study. The team compared five painted stars with a group of real stars called the Hyades. They also checked the Moon and Venus, a bright planet. They visited France and used computers to show the sky in 1889. The best match was around 22 July, before the sun came up.
The team thinks Van Gogh may have started in June and continued in July. But scientist Donald Olson questions their idea. He says their view of the sky is too narrow to fit the hills in the picture. The study does not prove when Van Gogh finished the painting.
