A comet that orbits the Sun about every 76 years. It was first recorded in 240 BC, was last seen in 1986, and is next due in 2061. Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited ...
Looking ahead to 2061 So, what can we expect from Halley's next appearance 38 years from now? With the current average life expectancy for Americans close to 79 years, if you were born after 1982, you have a better than 50-50 chance to witness Halley's return in the summer of 2061. ...
My next “big” comet was Comet Hyakutake, which took everyone by surprise in 1996 when it spread its long, loooong pale green tail across the sky like a banner. As I stood in the dakness of the countryside watching that, tracing the ridiculous length of its tail, I thought it was the...
What matters most is how much dust and gas the comet produces and how close it approaches to the Sun. Many spectacular comets in the past had nuclei much smaller than Comet ISON’s. Perfect examples are Comet Lovejoy, which was just 400 feet (120 meters) across, or Comet Hyakutake, 2.6...
But if Hyakutake had approached no closer than Comet Hale-Bopp (122 million miles, or 196 million km), it would have appeared no brighter than magnitude +6, which would have placed it right on the verge of naked-eye visibility in a non-light-polluted sky. Conversely, if Hale-Bopp— ...
Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin (negative luminance) - J. Brimacombe While imaging N3 Lulin for UT Readers, Dr. Joe Brimacombe used a negative luminance frame to take a closer look at what’s going on and discovered something quite out of the ordinary. First off, you’ll notice an anti-tail...
The Rosetta observations have greatly advanced our knowledge of the cometary nucleus and its immediate environment. However, constraints on the mission (bo
(193 million kilometers). (By comparison, thesun is 93 million miles, or 150 million km, from Earth). Astronomers still had the brightHyakutakecomet fresh in their minds at the time as it just passed by Earth in 1996. Hale-Bopp was many times farther away than Hyakutake but still ...