Computer Chronicles Revisited 59 — TellStar, Halley, and the Lick Observatory

In 1705, Oxford geometry professor Edmond Halley published a paper, A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets, which proposed that comets observed from Earth in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were in fact the same comet. Based on his calculations, Halley proposed the comet would be visible from Earth roughly every 75 years, with the next appearance expected in 1758. He never lived to see it, having died in 1741, but this prediction proved correct. Now known as Halley’s Comet (or Comet Halley), the celestial object’s most recent Earth appearance occurred in February 1986.

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