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Edmond Halley was born on November 8, 1656 in an area that's now part of London. If he hadn't been a contemporary of Isaac Newton, he might well have been considered the finest scientific mind of his generation.

Edmond Halley didn't discover a comet, but he did research and published papers in astronomy and many other fields. Russian Czar Peter the Great liked him as a dining and drinking companion and King William III put this civilian in charge of a Royal Navy ship. But how did he get a comet named for him?

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I had no idea. I just took it for granted that he found it, and it was named after him.
Thank you, Mona.


Michelle Anne Cope
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An easy mistake, Michelle, since these days comets do get named after their discoverers. And if there's more than one discoverer the name can get hard to say, especially if it's two Russians like the comet that Rosetta is orbiting: Churyumov–Gerasimenko. (I have a colleague who can get that out without tying his tongue in knots, but I still have trouble.)

And of course Halley did something much cleverer than discover a comet when he realized that his comet is periodic and predicted its return. But he had to be covered in posthumous glory because he was long gone when the comet returned. Very few people ever see it twice.

Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 11/17/15 09:05 AM.
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Every 75 years or so a very special member of the Solar System swoops close to the Sun, becoming visible in our skies like a cosmic ghost. Read about Halley's Comet, the most famous comet of all.

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When Comet Halley came around in 1986 no one had ever seen a comet's nucleus. They are small, distant and obscured by dust, so although we can see the comet's tails and coma, even a big ground-based telescope can't see the nucleus. But the European Space Agency's Giotto was one of the space probes that various countries sent to greet the comet.

Here is an image of Comet Halley up close and personal , generated from the data Giotto sent home. Edmond Halley would be thrilled if he could see this.

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When Halley's Comet visited in 1910, in May Earth passed through the tail of the comet. French astronomy popularizer Camille Flammarion warned of the danger of the cyanide gas in the tail. Other astronomers pointed out that the tail was so diffuse there was no danger. Nonetheless some people bought these anit-comet pills, other hid themselves indoors with the keyholes blocked.

Everybody survived the comet's passing. (There might have been people whose "protective" behavior injured them, but I haven't read of any.)


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