Halley’s Comet

  Halley’s Comet

A comet can be defined as a small solar system body, orbiting Sun. They are made up of dust, ice and small rocky particles. Halley’s Comet is the most famous as it is a periodic comet. It appears in about every 76 years. In 1986, it was the last time when this comet was here and now it will appear in 2061.

Quick Facts: –

• This comet is named after an English astronomer Edmund Halley.
• He concluded that comets orbits the Sun and discovered this comet’s period of orbit.
• Halley examined the reports that said a comet approached the earth in 1531, 1607, 1682.
• Halley’s Comet is known as a short term comet because the time taken in orbiting the Sun is less than 200 years.
• A specific portion of this comet has a glowing appearance that is known as a coma. This coma is visible only when the comet is close enough to Sun.
• Length of this comet is around 9 miles.
• The Oort cloud is the origin of Halley’s Comet.
• This comet is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.
• It is the first periodic comet to be identified.
• The first recorded appearance of this comet was in 240 B. C. as found in the Chinese Records of the Grand Historian.
• The direction of this comet’s orbit is opposite to the direction of planetary orbits.
• American writer Mark Twain was born in 1835, they same year in which the Halley’s Comet appeared and he made a successful prediction that he will die with a Halley’s Comet. Same thing happened as he died in 1910.