Comets and disaster have a long history. Even the name disaster means to be “against the stars.” The "Epic of Gilgamesh," an ancient Babylonian text, told of multiple catastrophes with the appearance of a comet in the sky. The assassination of Julius Caesar was blamed on a comet. The Black Death was thought to have been initiated with the discovery of a comet, and the Incas, in South America, record a comet that ushered the arrival of the conquerer Francisco Pizarro. Pope Calixtus III excommunicated Halley's Comet as an instrument of the devil. Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman, in the Middle Ages, wrote of God taking two stars and throwing them at the earth in order to begin the great Biblical flood. The list seems endless, and does not end with the purchase of gas masks by thousands of individuals upon the arrival of comet Halley in 1910! - though, on a positive note, the 1910 appearance of Halley’s Comet was also accompanied by the sale of thousands of telescopes.
The nucleus of a comet is composed of rock and ice. The English name of comet is derived from the Latin “cometes,” which itself is derived from a Greek word for long hair, as ancient Greek astronomers saw these amazing phenomenon as stars with hair. Comets are left over from the origins of our solar system, which is one of many reasons why astronomers are so keen to evaluate their contents as well as their origins. The tail of a comet consists of dust particles and ionized gas.
In 1744 a comet captured the attention of a fourteen year old French boy, Charles Messier, who would dedicate his life to discovering and observing comets. Messier developed a guide for astronomers who hoped to find a new comet, listing approximately a hundred objects which should not fool the astronomer into thinking he/she had found a comet. That list is now something like the Holy Grail of amateur astronomers, and it includes galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters, a double star, a supernova, planetary nebulae, and diffuse nebulae. These objects are among the finest observable gems of the night sky, but for Charles Messier, they were simply things to avoid in the exciting search for new comets.
Though not a comet hunter, my observations of twenty or so comets through the years have been accompanied with some deservedly rich, descriptive language. Take, for example, this journal entry from March 7, 2006: “The comet Pojmanski (C2006 A1) was found east and somewhat south of Altair (northwest of Venus) in the constellation Delphinus. It took dark adaptation, the comet rising higher above the horizon, and averted vision to finally see the tail, but there it was, moving to the west-southwest out of the comet’s head. The tail was magnificent, like a faint, greenish laser beam shining off the comet. In fact, it looked something like a single ray of an aurora borealis. I was surprised to see how big the nucleus had got. It was quite the fuzzball, appearing something like a ghostly globular cluster with a bright nucleus!”
To be honest, I can’t see how such beautiful objects could ever have been associated with doom. Certainly William the Conquerer must have thought comets were quite a good omen! And if my ancestors did, indeed, accompany William across the English Channel, then I owe my life to a comet!
©
Article &
image Dr. Robert Agnew 2008/2009
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