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Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. [citation needed] Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp discovered Comet Hale–Bopp separately on July 23, 1995, before it became visible to the naked eye.
After asserting that Comet Hale–Bopp was the sign that the group had been looking for, as well as the speculation that an unidentified flying object (UFO) may have been trailing the comet, Applewhite and his 38 followers prepared for ritual suicide, coinciding with the closest approach of the comet, so their souls could reach the Next Level ...
Alan Hale (born 1958) [1] is an American professional astronomer, who co-discovered Comet Hale–Bopp along with amateur astronomer Thomas Bopp. [2]Hale specializes in the study of Sun-like stars and the search for extra-solar planetary systems, and has side interests in the fields of comets and near-Earth asteroids.
Thomas Joel Bopp (October 15, 1949 – January 5, 2018) was an American amateur astronomer. In 1995, he discovered comet Hale–Bopp; Alan Hale discovered it independently at almost the same time, and it was thus named after both of them. [1] At the time of the comet discovery he was a manager at a construction materials factory and an amateur ...
Coin showing Caesar's Comet as a star with eight rays, tail upward. Non-periodic comets are seen only once. They are usually on near-parabolic orbits that will not return to the vicinity of the Sun for thousands of years, if ever.
Applewhite told them the comet Hale-Bopp was being trailed by an alien spacecraft and, if they died, they could board it. 38 people committed suicide. 20 years after the Heaven's Gate mass suicide ...
A comet fulfilling all three of these criteria will certainly be very bright. Sometimes, a comet failing on one criterion will still be bright. For example, Comet Hale–Bopp did not approach the Sun very closely, but had an exceptionally large and active nucleus. It was visible to the naked eye for several months and was very widely observed.
For instance, comet Hale-Bopp was last seen in 2013 at magnitude 24 [2] and continues to fade, making it invisible to all but the most powerful telescopes. The maximum extent of the region in which the Sun's gravitational field is dominant, the Hill sphere, may extend to 230,000 astronomical units (3.6 light-years) as calculated in the 1960s. [3]