Comets are celestial bodies constituted by ice, dust and rocks that orbit around the Sun following different elliptical, parabolic or hyperbolic trajectories. We can see them from Earth and, perhaps because their presence is so patent when looking at the sky, they have gained our admiration and have aroused the interest of humanity practically since the beginning of our time. If you are also fascinated, in the following article we want to tell you about some curiosities about comets that you probably did not know, or maybe ... Do you accompany us?
20 Curiosities of comets
1. Mark Twin was born on the day that Halley's comet passed through Earth. He commented: "I came to the world with Halley's Comet in 1835. He comes again next year, so I hope to go with him." The comet appeared again on April 21, 1910, the day Mark Twin died
2. The planet Jupiter is a "cosmic vacuum" whose gravitational influence causes comets and asteroids to collide with it. It has an impact rate of 2000 to 8000 times greater than the rate on Earth. If Jupiter did not exist, the probability of undergoing asteroid impacts with the inner planets would be much greater.
3. When, in 1910, the tail of Comet Halley crossed the Earth, spread the fear that the gas that gave off, the cyanogen, could destroy all the life of our planet, which caused a massive purchase of gas masks.
Four. When Julius Caesar was killed, a large comet struck the atmosphere of the Earth. It could be seen from China and from Rome and it has surely been the brightest comet in history seen in the light of day. That event made Julius Caesar outside Deified and the "Temple of the star comet" was built.
5. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994. A fragment hit the surface of the planet with an estimated energy of 6 million megatons of TNT, equivalent to 600 times the world's nuclear arsenal, and created a dark spot of more than 12,000 km diameter.
6 The first "image" of Halley comet it can be seen in the Bayeux tapestry, which dates back to the 1070s.
7 On August 13, 1883, a group of comets came to be 482 kilometers away from destroying all life, as we know it, on Earth.
8 In 2014, a comet that releases alcohol and sugar by its tail .
9. NASA collected, in 1999, samples of a comet. Those samples included evidence of liquid water even though scientists contend that comets never get hot enough to melt the ice they may contain.
10 Biela is a comet first recorded in 1772 by Montaigne and Messier and was eventually considered as a newspaper by Wilhelm von Biela in 1826. It was later noted that it had been divided into two and has not been seen since 1852.
eleven. The Tunguska is an event in which millions of trees were brought down in the center of Siberia in June 1908. Although scientists believe that it was the result of a burst caused by a comet or meteorite, no proof of this has ever been found. .
12 There is a theory that holds that life originated elsewhere in space and was transmitted to Earth by a comet or an asteroid.
13 The NASA was sued by a Russian astrologer for 300 million dollars for crashing a space probe against a comet
14 Maria Mitchell was the first professional astronomer, born in 1818, who discovered a comet and received a medal from the King of Denmark. The inscription read "Not in vain do we observe the scenery and the elevation of the stars".
fifteen. In 1910, several months before the appearance of Halley's comet, an even more spectacular comet appeared.
16 On May 17, 1882, observers of solar eclipses from Egypt were surprised to see a bright streak near the Sun once the eclipse was completed. This incredible coincidence of the perihelion passage of Comet Kreutz together with the eclipse of the sun meant that it did not go unnoticed.
17 The farthest reaches of the Oort Cloud, which is a comet cloud that surrounds the solar system, can be up to 100,000 times the distance from the Sun to Earth.
18 NASA collided an 815-pound piece of copper and aluminum with Comet Wild2.
19 The Giotto spacecraft was hit by the debris of Halley Comet, causing it to spin. He recovered after 32 minutes although his camera broke into thousands of pieces.
twenty. A single comet, which passed by the sun more than 1000 years ago, gave rise to the great comets 1106, 1843, 1882, 1887, 1965 and 2011 and hundreds of other comets.
These are the 20 curiosities of the comets that we have brought you in today's article. Did you know some of these curiosities about comets? If you are passionate about astronomy and you know some interesting information, share it with us! We will be happy to read you!