In early 1986, Sky & Telescope magazine offered me a free place on their Comet Halley tour to Ayers Rock in the Australian outback.
Articles with Comets
Photo by Henrique Felix on Unsplash
Impact scar on Jupiter from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 • Image by HST/Judy Schmidt (CC BY 2.0)
Comets, stars, and rock ‘n roll
An e‑mail query from a young acquaintance: “One of my favorite songs in all of explored space is ‘Jupiter Crash’ by The Cure.”
Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 • E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria (CC BY-SA 3.0)
If Hale-Bopp had come a bit earlier
In June 1995, Sky & Telescope magazine published an article by Mark Gingrich that posed the question: When are we likely to get the next great comet?
Comet Hale-Bopp in April 1997 • Photo by Tequask (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Call it organized skepticism
At the recent Ozark UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Ark., participants pooh-poohed the idea that a UFO is following Comet Hale-Bopp.
Comet Hyakutake in 1996 • NASA/Bill Ingalls (Public Domain)
In the beginning there was a comet
We watched the long slide of Comet Hyakutake from the dark southeastern sky, up across the north pole, into the light of the setting sun.
Photo by Cody Nottingham on Unsplash
The farm was his livelihood, but his passion was the sky
Comet Swift-Tuttle is back, plunging toward its closest approach to the sun early next month [in December 1992].
Detail from the Adoration of the Magi by Giotto
Giotto’s ‘star’
In the year 1303, Enrico Scrovegni, a businessman of Padua, Italy, commissioned the construction of a chapel, partly to expiate the sins of his father, a notorious money-lender assigned by the poet Dante to the seventh circle of Hell.
Artist's conception of comet bombardment • NASA/JPL-Caltech
A constant rain of comets
This week in Baltimore, three Iowa scientists will confront skeptical colleagues with evidence for a radical new theory: that the Earth’s upper atmosphere is continually bombarded by small comets, thousands of them every day, plashing like raindrops into a pond.
Halley's Comet in 1986 • Kuiper Airborne Observatory (Public Domain)
Halley’s comet: a beautiful blur of light
Comet Halley is destined to disappoint a lot of people. Maybe it is time to hear from someone who has not been disappointed.
Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash
August’s shower of space dust
If it is good luck to see a shooting star, then this could be your lucky night. This is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, the richest show of the year. If the night is clear and you are patient and can get far enough from the city lights to find dark skies, you might see a few dozen meteors per hour tonight.