Download or read book Historic Stars Comets written by Beatrice Fox Griffith and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Greatest Comets in History written by David A.J. Seargent and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-12-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Naked-eye comets are far from uncommon. As a rough average, one appears every 18 months or thereabouts, and it is not very unusual to see more than two in a single year. The record so far seems to have been 2004, with a total of five comets visible without optical aid. But 2006, 1970, and 1911 were not far behind with a total of four apiece. Yet, the majority of these pass unnoticed by the general public. Most simply look like fuzzy stars with tails that are either faint or below the naked-eye threshold. The ‘classical’ comet – a bright star-like object with a long flowing tail – is a sight that graces our skies about once per decade, on average. These ‘great comets’ are surely among the most beautiful objects that we can see in the heavens, and it is no wonder that they created such fear in earlier times. Just what makes a comet ‘‘great’’ is not easy to define. It is neither just about brightness nor only a matter of size. Some comets can sport prodigiously long tails and yet not be regarded as great. Others can become very bright, but hardly anyone other than a handful of enthusiastic astronomers will ever see them. Much depends on their separation from the Sun, the intensity of the tail, and so forth.
Download or read book Comets written by Donald K. Yeomans and published by . This book was released on 1991-02-08 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diminutive size of cometary bodies is in no way proportional to their scientific importance. Theorists suggest that comets played a major role in the development of the Earth and subsequent collosions of comets may have wiped out various life forms, allowing only the most adaptable to develop further. In short, the study of comets is important from a historical perspective, scientifically compelling and, at the same time, entertaining. In this authoritative book, the development of cometary ideas is traced from antiquity through the actual fly-by of Halley by international spacecraft in 1986. The focus is on the cometary theories that were evident in each era. Included are many colorful anecdotes and information about culture and important personalities throughout history. Also contains an exhaustive catalog of all comet apparitions through the year 1700.
Download or read book A History of Physical Theories of Comets From Aristotle to Whipple written by Tofigh Heidarzadeh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-05-23 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the development of ideas about the motion and trajectory of comets has been investigated piecemeal, we lack a comprehensive and detailed survey of ph- ical theories of comets. The available works either illustrate relatively short periods in the history of physical cometology or portray a landscape view without adequate details. The present study is an attempt to review – with more details – the major physical theories of comets in the past two millennia, from Aristotle to Whipple. My research, however, did not begin with antiquity. The basic question from which this project originated was a simple inquiry about the cosmic identity of comets at the dawn of the astronomical revolution: how did natural philosophers and astronomers define the nature and place of a new category of celestial objects – comets – after Brahe’s estimation of cometary distances? It was from this turning point in the history of cometary theories that I expanded my studies in both the pre-modern and modern eras. A study starting merely from Brahe and ending with Newton, without covering classical and medieval thought about comets, would be incomplete and leave the fascinating achievements of post-Newtonian cometology unexplored.
Download or read book Comet Lore Halley s Comet in History and Astronomy written by Edwin Emerson and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-24 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Comet Lore Halley's Comet in History and Astronomy Sun will surely rise and set to-morrow. Just so surely must a Comet flare forth in our Heavens this Spring. Star-gazers, astronomers and learned men have been waiting for this Comet all over the earth in America, in Europe, in far China. They have known for certain that this Comet would come; and they knew just when and where in the Heavens the Comet would first show itself to the naked eye - down to the very night. All this has been known so surely because this same Comet has been seen by the people of this earth before. It came and went seventy-four years ago. Seventy-six years before that, it came and went. And seventy-six years before that, the Comet had come and gone. As long as human beings have lived on this earth for - thousands and thousands of years - human eyes have beheld this same Comet every seventy-six years or so. The longest time between the Comets coming has been seventy-nine years. The shortest interval of all - 74/2 years - was this time. For thousands of years in the past, wise men have written down records of this Comet. Long, long ago, when white men were still savages who dwelt in caves, patient star-gazers in China and Chaldea studied the motions of this Comet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book Catalog of Unconfirmed Comets Volume 1 written by Gary W. Kronk and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This catalog is the first in-depth investigation of comets that were reported since the 17th century, but not confirmed and subsequently lost. Volume I of this two-volume work covers objects observed between 1600 and 1899, a period that was dominated by visual observations and was experiencing a rapid evolution in science. The book uniquely combines the history and culture of comet hunting and discovery with modern tools of orbital mechanics to present a wholesome catalog of unconfirmed and suspected comets. Each case includes a presentation of the observations, a discussion about the observer (when possible), consideration of the historic context, and a conclusion as to the nature of the object. In most cases, the book presents material from original sources, including some never before published that were acquired from observatories, libraries, and historical societies around the world. Although some of these unconfirmed comets turned out to be misidentifications of planets or star clusters, fabrications, or poor observations of comets that were already being observed, the Authors did identify many objects that were likely real comets. In some cases, the Authors were even able to derive orbits for the first time. These observations may be valuable in the future, as they could prove to be observations of periodic comets still to be discovered.
Download or read book The History of Comets Containing the Particulars of the Blazing Comet which Now Appears in the Heavens Etc written by HISTORY. and published by . This book was released on 1811 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Comet Lore Halley s Comet in History and Astronomy Classic Reprint written by Edwin Emerson and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-02-02 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Comet Lore Halley's Comet in History and Astronomy The great English poets, on their part, have lifted up their voices to sing of the dire effects of Comets. Shakespeare, the greatest of them all, abounds in allu sions to these dread wandering stars. Thus he makes Horatio in the first scene of Hamlet speak with awe of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book Comet Lore written by Edwin Emerson and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Wayward Comet written by Martin Beech and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comets have not only blazed across the celestial vault throughout human history, they have embellished the night sky since the Earth itself formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Comets were among the first-born solid bodies in the solar system, and their frozen nuclei tell of the primordial chemistry and chaos that ultimately resulted in the formation of the planets, the evolution of life and us. For all this, however, comets have long been celestial oddities: they baffled our distant ancestors, and human society continues to marvel and speculate wildly at their appearance even to the present day. Cutting against the perceived constancy of the stars, comets seemingly present themselves at random times and they are often interpreted as harbingers of terrestrial change - both good and ill. How then are we to tame the comet: where do they form, how do they move, and can their appearances be predicted? Such questions have preoccupied astronomers for centuries but comets have only gradually allowed the secrets of their wayward flight to be revealed. In this book I explore the historical struggle to understand not only the place of comets within a societal context, but also the scientific quest to make their paths amenable to mathematical certitude. The latter narrative is the more technical in content, but it took tactile form with the invention, in 1732, of the cometarium, a mechanical device to demonstrate the first two of Kepler's planetary laws. And, this development was later paralleled, in the mid to late 19th century, by the development of various mechanical devices (analog computers) to help obtain solutions to Kepler's Problem - the problem which asks, exactly where in its orbit is a given comet at some specific set time. The telling of the wayward comets story covers the past two millennia of human history, and it takes us from the phenomenological musings of Aristotle, through the exactitude of Newton's gravitational theory and calculus, to the truly incredible study of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, in the modern era.
Download or read book Comets Their Origin Nature and History written by Henry William Elson and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Comet of 1577 written by C.D. Hellman and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of the Doctrine of Comets written by Andrew Dickson White and published by . This book was released on 1887 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Jars to the Stars written by Todd Neff and published by Earthview Media. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did a company best known for its glass jars hit a comet 83 million miles away? The answer involves technical expertise, heroic dedication, an industrial giant’s push to modernize, Hitler’s V-2 rocket, speakers destined for a Hall & Oates summer concert tour, and the search for life’s origins. In “From Jars to the Stars: How Ball Came to Build a Comet-Hunting Machine,” award-winning science journalist Todd Neff presents an inside look at the backgrounds and motivations of the men and women who actually create the spacecraft on which the American space program rides. A timeless story of science, engineering, politics and business strategy intertwining to bring success in the brutal business of space, “From Jars to the Stars” is a lively account of one of mankind’s great modern achievements. It is a story about people, foremost those on the Deep Impact mission, which smashed a spacecraft into the comet Tempel 1. “From Jars to the Stars” explores the improbable beginnings of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., which built the comet hunter, and the evolution of the American space agency that funded it. The book begins with the story of a group of University of Colorado students who built a “sun seeker” for the noses of sounding rockets studying the home star. The pathbreaking device sparked the creation and development of both Ball Aerospace and the University of Colorado’s formidable Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “From Jars to the Stars” describes how Ed Ball, president of the Ball Brothers Company of Muncie, Indiana, ended up owning a space business in Boulder, Colorado, through a combination of strategic intent and serendipity. Neff explores the personalities and the technologies behind Ball’s pioneering spacecraft, the Orbiting Solar Observatory launched in 1962. The Ball orbiter prepares the ground for Deep Impact, showing readers how much—and how little—changed across four decades of American space exploration. Neff goes on to show how Ball Aerospace evolved into an organization capable of building seven Hubble Space Telescope instruments as well as the comet hunter at the center of the story. The author describes the development of the American space enterprise as it went from emphasizing big-budget “gigabuck” missions to “faster, better, cheaper” spacecraft of the sort Ball specialized in. Neff pays special mind to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the world leader in interplanetary space exploration and Ball’s partner on Deep Impact. It was often a rocky marriage. Throughout, Neff makes clear that robotic space missions are indeed manned: the people just happen to stay on the ground.
Download or read book Fire and Ice written by Roberta J. M. Olson and published by Walker. This book was released on 1985 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Comets written by P. Andrew Karam and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radiating fire and ice, comets as a phenomenon seem part science, part myth. Two thousand years ago when a comet shot across the night sky, it convinced the Romans that Julius Caesar was a god. In 1066, Halley’s Comet was interpreted as a foreshadowing of the death of Harold the Second in the Battle of Hastings. Even today the arrival of a comet often feels auspicious, confirming our hopes, fears, and sense of wonder in the universe. In Comets, P. Andrew Karam takes the reader on a far-ranging exploration of these most beautiful and dramatic objects in the skies, revealing how comets and humanity have been interwoven throughout history. He delves into the science of comets and how it has changed over time; the way comets have been depicted in art, religion, literature, and popular culture; and how comets have appeared in the heavens through the centuries. Comprehensive in scope and beautifully illustrated throughout, the book will appeal not only to the budding astronomer, but to anyone with an appreciation for these compelling and remarkable celestial bodies.
Download or read book The Great Christ Comet written by Colin R. Nicholl and published by Crossway Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the biblical text and using the latest astronomical research, this book presents compelling evidence that the historic star of Bethlehem that accompanied Christ's birth was actually a great comet.
