Comet Halley's magnitude on that date was 13.2, while Hale-BoppĪt the same distance is at magnitude 5.2, which is 8.0 magnitudes difference.Ĭurrently Comet Hale-Bopp is running approximately 500 times brighter thanĬomet Halley when taking into account the difference between the Earth andīoth comets in relation to the distance to the sun.ĭr. On June 30, Comet Halley was at a comparable distanceįrom the Sun. 11, 1996, Comet Hale-Bopp was 3.475 AU from the To produce the spectacle that is predicted for it. Glare sometime during January, we should know then if the comet is going We are currently awaiting anxiously the re-appearance of theĬomet after its conjunction with the Sun. The comet should appear somewhat more prominent than Hyakutake did but a Tail structure will not come until several weeks after perihelion. The comet will be highly foreshortened and so our best view of the Will in all likelihood be something around 10 or possibly 20 degrees in As for tail length, we can only make rough guesses. This would preclude itįrom being another comet Kohoutek or Austin, as both of these were Oortįrom all indications the comet should attain a magnitude of at leastĠ, and a magnitude of -2 (the brightness of the planet Jupiter) is not out Have been sublimated off on its previous return. This comet has been here before and so all of its very volatile ices should However, of these comets were a thousand years too late. There is also a comet mentioned in Homer's Iliad but the date is very Have records for is around 1059 BC and the next two are at 1002 BC and 974īC. It should also be mentioned that the earliest comet we Records for any previous observation of this comet around circa 2,000 BC.Īt this time nothing has been found, although the comet should have beenĬlearly visible. Yeomans of the Jet Propulsion Lab has been searching the ancient Its orbit from a period of 4,200 years down to a new period of 3,400 years.ĭonald K. Astronomers believe the comet made a closeĪpproach of 0.77 AU from Jupiter on April 5, 1996. The Great Comet of 1811 was a comparable object.Ĭomet Hale-Bopp is probably not a new comet from the Oort Cloud nor a Possibly this is intrinsically the brightest comet in human history. At this time the comet was at 13.1 AU from the Sun. On a photographic plate made by Robert McNaught at Siding Springs, Australia The comet was at that time in the constellation Sagitarrius and approximatelyħ.15 AU from Sun (about 665 million miles). His discovery was immediately followedĪbout five minutes later by Tom Bopp from Phoenix, Arizona, giving them Here's an animation of photographs taken over several days, which indicates the rotation of the nucleus (with a period of about 12 hours):Ĭomet Hale-Bopp Information Sheet Prepared by The Atlanta Astronomy ClubĬomet Hale-Bopp was discovered on Saturday night Jby Alan Here's another photo that clearly displays the separation of the two Here are some great close-up photographs of Comet Hale-Bopp, from the Its orbit is inclined at 89° to the ecliptic, and has an estimated period of 3400 years. In early May it crossed the plane of the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth's orbit), a position called the descending node. Its perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) of 0.9 AU occurred on April 1, 1997. The more massive dust is also pushed away from the Sun into a dust tail, typically arched due to the dust's inertia.The dust reflects sunlight, and so appears yellow.Ĭomet Hale-Bopp was first observed on Jby amateur astronomers Alan Hale and Tom Bopp, when it was about 3.5 AU from the Sun. The gas fluoresces blue as its atoms ionize and recombine. The gas is light enough to be pushed directly away from the Sun by solar radiation, and is drawn out into an ion tail. As the comet approaches the Sun the ice vaporizes, releasing a cloud of gas and dust to produce the coma. The spherical coma, at the left end, roughly 6 million Km in diameter, hides a 50-Km nucleus of ice and dust. Open Course : Astronomy : Introduction : Comet Hale-Bopp Comet Hale-BoppĬomet Hale-Bopp has been called the "Comet of the Century".
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