Comet Hunters Research Articles

Referencias al cometa Halley desde el observatorio de Cádiz

This paper presents the history of the observations of Halley's comet, in its first scheduled appearance, which were made from the Observatory of Cádiz. A history that links Cadiz with important names: Edmund Halley, who went to Isaac Newton to check the comet's orbit; Jorge Juan and the creation of the Cadiz Observatory which his friend Luis Godin would direct; important astronomers such as Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, who talked to Halley in London and was interested in his predictions, and his disciple the astronomer Charles Messier, who was nicknamed the comet hunter, due to the number of comets he described. Godin, who was himself a fellow astronomy student of Delisle, tracked Halley's comet from the Cadiz observatory, and it is recorded that these observations were taken and sent to Delisle. At a time when data collection was manual, as was the copying of the data and the corresponding annotations; and at a time when the transfer of information was not like e-mails, but was done by horse-drawn carriage, the guarantee that this information reached so many kilometres away could only be given in a later publication. That ratification is the one presented in this article, which completes the link between the Observatory of Cádiz and Halley's comet.

My LIFE AS A COMET HUNTER.

The article offers the author's insights on his dedication to become a professional comet hunter. The author discusses his early memories of learning the French language to pass an examination, his discovery on the movement of a fuzzy object, and the new comets he discovered including the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which was the first comet that crashed in the planet Jupiter.

The messier objects as a tool in teaching astronomy

The French astronomer Charles Messier (1730- 1817) compiled a catalogue [1] of astronomical objects which reached109 innumber after additions by later astronomers were added. The catalogue contains galaxies, emission nebulae, a supernova remnant, a double star, globular clusters, open clusters, an asterism, a star cloud, and planetary nebulae. While the objective of Messier in compiling the catalogue was to guide comet hunters not to be confused by his objects which he thought looked like comets [2], the Messier Catalogue as it later became known became a standard guide to astronomers for a study of the sky’s “greatest hits” or the best samples of objects which can be observed and studied. This paper explores the value of the Messier Catalogue in the teaching of Astronomy and Earth Science. The range of objects is wide and contains some of the best examples of their type. The teaching method I propose is the actual observations of the objects through a telescope, with the corresponding explanation. Some principles which will be covered through this process are stellar evolution from the birth and death of stars, galaxy types, formation of galaxies, galactic interactions, life in the Universe, cosmology, and our place in the Universe.

Australia's great comet hunter

John Tebbutt was Australia's pre-eminent 19th-century astronomer who discovered two great comets of that century. Ragbir Bathal tells his story.

Astronomers are Poised for the ‘Crash of 1994’: Boom Or Bust?

If comets are like “dirty snowballs,” as Fred Whipple proposed in the early 1950s, then Jupiter is about to suffer the embarrassment of being hit by a boomerang snowball as astronomers around the world watch. Like many snowballs, Comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9 broke apart in mid‐flight. Comet SL9 was first seen, already in orbit around Jupiter, in March 1993, by a trio of avid comet hunters: Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker of the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, and David Levy, a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope magazine. By May of last year the comet's orbit had been determined. It was realized by Brian Marsden (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts) that in July 1992, SL9 had come within 95 000 km of Jupiter's center of mass, where it experienced tidal forces sufficient to rip it apart. On its next pass, SL9 will aim to come within 30 000 km of Jupiter's center of mass. Because the planet's radius is about 71 000 km, Jupiter will suffer a direct hit. Astronomers will be on hand to evaluate its injuries, if any.