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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.
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]
Heinrich Kreutz was a German astronomer 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. [11] That group, known as the Kreutz Sungrazers, has produced some of the brightest comets ever observed, including X/1106 C1 and Comet Ikeya ...
Caesar's Comet was known to ancient writers as the Sidus Iulium ("Julian Star") or Caesaris astrum ("Star of Julius Caesar"). The bright, daylight-visible comet appeared suddenly during the festival known as the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris—for which the 44 BC iteration was long considered to have been held in the month of September (a conclusion drawn by Edmund Halley).
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)
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 ...
The confirmation of the comet's return was the first time anything other than planets had been shown to orbit the Sun. [36] It was also one of the earliest successful tests of Newtonian physics, and a clear demonstration of its explanatory power. [37] The comet was first named in Halley's honour by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in ...
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 ...