Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Around forty comets have had their orbits calculated based entirely on ancient Chinese records. [2] Of the well known comets, besides Halley, Brian G. Marsden suggested, based on Chinese and other ancient observations, that the Great Comet of 1106 was a previous apparition of Comet Ikeya–Seki. [14]
Little is known of what people thought about comets before Aristotle, who observed his eponymous comet, and most of what is known comes secondhand.From cuneiform astronomical tablets, and works by Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Seneca, and one attributed to Plutarch but now thought to be Aetius, it is observed that ancient philosophers divided themselves into two main camps.
Heinrich Kreutz was a German astronomer, [11] who claimed that the orbits of several sungrazing comets were related and likely produced when a large Sun-grazing comet fragmented hundreds of years previously. That group, known as the Kreutz Sungrazers, has produced some of the brightest comets ever observed, including X/1106 C1 and Comet Ikeya ...
The exploding comet also created tornado-force winds which hurtled the chunks of molten glass across the region. A comet glowing in the night sky just above the horizon. (Image/Alberto Agostini)
Periodic comets usually have elongated elliptical orbits, and usually return to the vicinity of the Sun after a number of decades. The official names of non-periodic comets begin with a "C"; the names of periodic comets begin with "P" or a number followed by "P". Comets that have been lost or disappeared have names with a "D". Comets whose ...
In ancient and medieval times, only objects visible to the naked eye—the Sun, the Moon, the five classical planets, and comets, along with phenomena now known to take place in Earth's atmosphere, like meteors and aurorae—were known. [dubious – discuss] Ancient
Scientists in Germany have observed a comet-like object in a distant galaxy that is similar in composition to the famed Halley's comet -- just a LOT bigger. Astronomers discover comet 100,000 ...
Periodic comets sometimes bear the same name repeatedly (e.g. the nine Shoemaker–Levy comets or the twenty-four NEAT comets); the IAU system distinguishes between them either through the number prefix or by the full designation (e. g. 181P and 192P/Shoemaker–Levy are both "Comet Shoemaker–Levy"). In the literature, an informal numbering ...