Halley\'s Comet

The Halley's Comet (1P/Halley) is most known of all the Comet S. Its half main roads is of 17.9 ua (1 ua makes approximately 150 million kilometers, its period is 76 years, its eccentricity is of 0.97. Its distance to the perihelion is of 0.59 ua and its distance to the aphelion is of 35.3 ua.

History

In 1705, Edmund Halley published an advancing book that the comet which had appeared in the sky in 1531, 1607 and 1682 was each time the same one. Explaining why the comet travels on a elliptic orbit, it takes 76 years to make a complete revolution around the Sun. Halley predicts that it would return in 1758. In 1757, Clairaut decided to calculate the deviations of comet due to large planets. It envisaged delay a 518 days due to Jupiter and 100 days due to Saturn. He thus announced the return of comet, not in 1758, but in 1759 with a passage to the Périhélie in April 1759, with a one month uncertainty. When the comet reappeared in December 1758 with a passage to the perihelion on March 13rd, 1759, it was a triumph. This forecast made it possible definitively to sit Newtonian mechanics in France, the theory of the swirls of Descartes falling definitively into the lapse of memory.

One can move back in time and suppose the moment when Halley's Comet should theoretically have been pointed in the sky. According to the appearances of comets noted by the old ones, one can note that a comet was observed by men in 240 av. J. - C. It is possible that it is about Halley's Comet. According to Jacques Gernet (the Chinese world, 3rd volume, p 146), she would have been also seen in China under the kingdom of Yue in -467 front J-C, which would constitute the first indexed appearance.

She also could be observed in the year 1066. A comet indeed drew the attention of the army of William the Conqueror and one finds it on famous the Tapisserie of Bayeux, which illustrates the invasion of the England by the Normands.

One knows some much more on Halley's Comet since the Sonde Giotto probed the heart of it. Launched in 1986, the probe had the role of going to photograph the core of comet. Giotto approached to 600 km the core a dimension 15 × 8 km; it was a first in the history of astronomy. The photographs of the Giotto probe are invaluable data making it possible to better include/understand the constitution of comets and the mechanism of sublimation to the approach of the Sun. The last visit of Halley goes back to 1986 and one will not re-examine it before 2061.

One can observe enormous gas geysers escaping from the core of Halley's Comet.

1835,1910 and 1986 are the dates of the last three passages of Comet in our sky.

Anecdotes

People born and dead at the time of a passage of comet:

Mark Twain was born in 1835 and deceased in 1910.
Jean Genet was born in 1910 and deceased in 1986.

Ernst Jünger born in 1895 saw twice Halley's Comet during his life. He wrote besides a text entitled Under the sign of Halley .

External bonds

The Giotto mission
Halley' S Makes

Be-X-old: КамэтаГальлея Simple: Makes Halley

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