Comet Hale-Bopp, 1997

Leaf 349 – Looking Back

 

Craig Linde - Hale-Bopp (March, 1997) Sky & Telescope

On the 1^st of April 1997, the Comet Hale-Bopp reached perihelion – the nearest point to the sun in the course of its orbit. That orbit itself has been calculated to take around 4,200 years. It is thought that the last time it passed so close to Earth was around 2215 BC, when it might have been recorded by ancient Egyptian astronomers in a text found at Saqqara, which described it as a “long-haired star.” It was a genuinely spectacular sight in the night sky, and was clearly visible to the naked eye for many months. Hale- Bopp is the brightest comet (to date) to pass through our solar system since the Great Comet of 1811; unlike the return of Halley’s Comet in 1986, which somewhat disappointingly was very much over-hyped at the time, as I recall. I have very fond memories of seeing Hale-Bopp framed in the night sky at the end of our road, hanging over Harrow-on-the-Hill in the suburbs of London, throughout the early part of that year. At the time, and even now, I find it a fascinating phenomenon to contemplate.

 

 

COMET HALE-BOPP, 1997

 

Rocks, gases, dust –

compassing the void

scribing an ellipse

between the finite

and the infinite.