Talk:Halley's Comet/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Section for asteroid showers?

I found it rather surprising the article does not mention the Aquarids at all. Even once, or supply a link to the (admittedly poor) article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Aquariids 184.166.240.249 (talk) 13:13, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Because its orbit comes close to Earth's in two places, Halley's Comet is the parent body of two meteor showers: the Eta Aquariids in early May, and the Orionids in late October.[32] Serendipodous 13:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Naming details and picture captions

Can any of the regular editors of this article help with adding details of when this comet was first named after Halley, or at least quoting an early use of the phrase "Halley's comet" (earlier than Twain), and also saying when the designation '1P/Halley' was first used. Also, some of the image captions need years added. Is the lead image from 1986? Almost certainly, but the reader shouldn't have to click the image to find out. What year is the 'Orionid meteor' picture? What date was The Adoration of the Magi by Giotto (and more to the point, why is this not mentioned in the main text but only adding in passing via an image)? And what year was the image 'Halley's comet at 28 AU from the Sun' obtained? Is that the 2003 observation mentioned in the main text? Carcharoth (talk) 21:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

  • I’ve tried before to figure out when some sort practice *first* came into being—such as when something was first called [yadda yadda]. Such endeavors by wikipedians are frequently in error. It wouldn’t surprise me that the first instance of “Halley’s comet” (it wouldn’t have been considered a proper noun around the time of its discovery) was the week he announced his discovery. Greg L (talk) 22:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Actually, I should have read the article more closely. "The comet was first named in Halley's honour by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1759". And that is cited to a reliable source, you will be pleased to hear. Though this source gives 1756 as an earlier example (by the same astronomer) Oops, misread that, it says 1765 as Serendipodous correctly pointed out. 1758/9 was the time when lots of astronomers were looking out for the predicted return. If you want to see what terminology Halley used, go read his Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets (1705). Carcharoth (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC) Corrected. 21:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
The source you gave gives 1765 as the first mention of the name. Serendipodous 06:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
My apologies. I completely misread that and transposed the last two digits of the year. I've struck what I said above and corrected it. But this may be an inconsistency in the sources. Should it be 1759 or 1765? Maybe 1765 was when de Lacaille published his work? What should the Wikipedia article say? I also looked at Comet#Nomenclature, and it seems the naming system that includes 1P/Halley was introduced in 1994. That may not be worth mentioning, but it does answer my other question. As for the picture captions, I'll edit those but please feel free to revert if you think the year of the pictures gives too much information. I'm also unsure about File:Orionid12n.jpg. Is that really needed here? Carcharoth (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes and additions (September 2011)

Noting here some recent changes and additions I made. See the diff here. The changes were: tweaks to and adding of links; minor phrasing changes and typo corrections; addition of years to image captions; changing Challenger to Columbia for STS-61-E (this needs double-checking as I was unable to access the original source used for this); creating the redirect for STS-61-E; and adding further details of what was lost on the Challenger (STS-51-L), namely the "Shuttle-Pointed Tool for Astronomy (SPARTAN-203) satellite, also called the Halley's Comet Experiment Deployable (HCED)". As I said in my edit summary, the source there is not great, so hopefully a better one can be found (though that source does indicate very clearly what the SPARTAN 203 module was designed to do). Hopefully that is all OK. The article was otherwise excellent (though some additional more detailed copyediting could still be done), and I enjoyed reading it. Carcharoth (talk) 22:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that I also added in the external links a link to Halley's 1705 paper. I also read the paper and it is fascinating. Would it be possible to quote the conclusions that he came to? i.e. quote direct from that paper at some point in this article? Carcharoth (talk) 23:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
If all you're doing is quoting, and you don't draw any conclusions from the material, then you can cite the primary source. Serendipodous 02:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Furthermore, neutrally describing a primary source (Halley's line of reasoning, for example) is not drawing conclusions.
Any reasonable conclusions may already be in the literature; Halley's paper is quite famous and much discussed. I would be prepared to look at JSTOR if useful; any plausible conclusion not found may well become a paper. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I only intended to quote. It may be overkill here (and might be better at the article on Halley himself), but the bit I'd quote is this:
I've not reproduced the exact orthography. Is that too much to quote? Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

If you change the to their in that quote, you can shorten it. Serendipodous 07:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying quoting the bit in red would work well? I'd be happy with that. Presumably in the 'Computation of orbit' section. Could also throw in a mention of Longomontanus if a reliable secondary source confirms that Longomontanus did indeed observe the comet along with Kepler as Halley claims. Carcharoth (talk) 11:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Was reading around this a bit more and found this paper by D. K. Yeomans (who is already used as a source several times in this article). This reference is: Astronomical Journal, vol. 82, June 1977, p. 435-440. It opens with a quote from Halley and Yeomans states that Halley was aware of the periodicity as early as 1695. I think this detail is worth adding to the article. There are lots of other details there as well, including the work by Bessel: 'The nine 1607 observations by T. Harriot, J. Kepler, and Longomontanus were taken from Bessel's (1804) work'. As well as mentioning Thomas Harriot along with Kepler and Longomontanus for the 1607 observations, it might be worth adding the paper to the external links as well as a form of further reading. I've backed off, though, from the idea of quoting directly from Halley, as he said different things at different times, as can be seen here (page 19 of 'David Levy's guide to observing and discovering comets', 2003, David Levy). In that book, Levy points out that Yeomans pointed out that Halley's first statements in 1705 (in Latin) were confident but then progressively less so, first in English later that year, and then again ten years later, and then his final writings. It would be wonderful if that could be worked in somehow, but I'm not quite sure how to word that. Carcharoth (talk) 23:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Storer's Comet

It deserves to be mentioned that for a while, it was known as Storer's Comet after Arthur Storer, the first astronomer in English colonies in America and Isaac Newton's childhood acquaintance. (Poor fellow got literally beaten up by Newton and Halley drove away his comet; a sordid fate indeed.) --Oop (talk) 12:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That would need a citation, and also a rationale. Why was Storer given credit? Serendipodous 17:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Twice in a lifetime?

If Halley's Comet only comes every 75-76 years, then you'd have to be at least 150 years old to see it twice. The person with the longest verified lifespan is Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years old. Therefore, until modern medicine is considerably improved, and someone with perfect health and genes comes along, we can safely assume that no one has ever seen Halley's comet twice.--Yutsi Talk/ Contributions 21:53, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

No, you could be a child - say 5 years old and see it at 5 and 81. Leaky Caldron 21:57, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Wow, I can't believe I didn't think of that one. Thanks for clarifying. --Yutsi Talk/ Contributions 22:03, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Samuel Clemens famously came into the world with Halley's Comet in the early 19th-Century and went out with it in the early 20th. Lots of people who saw it in 1986 were old enough to have seen it on it's 1910 pass. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.60 (talk) 02:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

1910 collision rumour

An episode of "The Time Tunnel" is set in 1910, with Doug and Tony arriving in a coal mining town. Miners are trapped and the people won't help dig them out because they believe an astronomer's prediction of collision and the end of the world. Question: is there any truth to some astronomers believing there would be a collision? Or was that contrived only for the television episode? 0.15 AU is very close, and without the proper instrumentation, it does seem to the layman that one could look at lines and decide a collision was possible. GBC (talk) 15:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

There was no risk of impact in 1910. But scammers did try to sell pills to protect you from the comet's tail. -- Kheider (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Visibility From Earth

I'd like to make two points. 1) The table lists dates of perihelion, which if my understanding is correct would be the date of closest approach to the Sun. What might be more useful and/or interesting would be a table showing the dates when the comet was visible from Earth. I mention this because on the article about the year 837AD it says that the closest approach to Earth was on April 10, which is not the date shown in the table on this article. 2) The article says that the comet's orbit comes close to Earth in two places. My feeble understanding of this would be that it would be visible twice, or only once with its brightness waxing and waning as it approaches to it's closest then moves away again then returns for it's second approach before finally moving away again. As part of the explanation of dates when visible from Earth, could this waxing/waning feature of its visibility please be explained by some knowledgeable editor. Cheers. Cottonshirtτ 10:40, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Quick answer: For an observation that old (837AD), the date of perihelion is easiest and more reliable. Of course closest approach to the Earth and closest approach to the Sun can vary by months. -- Kheider (talk) 14:52, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is there any reason for giving /ˈheɪli/ as a pronunciation, other than the fact that it's a common mispronunciation, probably traceable to the band name Bill Haley & His Comets? Koro Neil (talk) 23:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Since no one knows how Halley pronounced his name, there really is no such thing as a mispronunciation. And the /ˈheɪli/ is way older than Rock Around the Clock. Serendipodous 06:22, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not true. Several contemporary sources made it fairly clear Halley was pronounced as Hawley, which was detailed in a 1985 Esquire piece as the comet was due around again. Can you cite one other English name that's pronounced with a first syllable A the way you've listed in this article. Jack Horkheimer was an astronomer, not a linguist. The listed pronunciation is wrong and should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Howard Evans (talk • contribs) 10:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

No, you don't get it. A valid reference for this information already exists. It is YOUR job to come up with a superior reference, not ours. Serendipodous 10:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. DrKiernan (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Halley's Comet → Halley's comet – Spelling, page 175 of "New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors". Google NGRAM[1] is equally split - might as well be correct. Apteva (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
  • Oppose. Serendipodous 15:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose the entire phrase is a proper noun. In an alternative history, Halley might have had other comets, but only this one would be Halley's Comet. --Trovatore (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose; it looks like a proper noun, it acts like a proper noun, we might as well treat it as a proper noun. Powers T 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose So let me get this straight, Apteva: you believe species names are proper nouns but individual comets aren't? --BDD (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
    That is what reliable sources say. What I believe is not important. Apteva (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
To clarify, do reliable sources specifically say species names are proper nouns and individual comets aren't, or are you inferring that based on capitalization? --BDD (talk) 22:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
A little of both. Some sources do say that species names are proper names. But not all words in them are capitalized. As to comets I am inferring from capitalization that "Halley's comet" and comet Hale–Bopp would not be called proper nouns. Apteva (talk) 23:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with your interpretation on species names, though I can understand the argument. But individual comets are undoubtedly proper nouns. Look at our definition: "A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity." There's only one Halley's Comet; it's a unique entity. Jupiter is one of our examples. You can argue for a change in this capitalization on other grounds, but saying Halley's Comet isn't a proper noun misunderstands one or the other. --BDD (talk) 23:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
My recommendation of moving is based on two factors. A reliable source - a respected dictionary of scientific terms - spells it that way, and by common usage it is a toss up - could be called either comet or Comet. Apteva (talk) 00:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
"Halley's Comet" and "Comet Halley" in Britannica and Merriam-Webster. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose it should be Comet Halley -- 70.24.247.66 (talk) 05:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose All periodic comets have proper names. Proper names (astronomy) incorrectly implies that only stars and minor planets have proper names, and I have left a source in its talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the previous RM requesting the same change. In practice, we defer to IAU naming standards in much the same way we defer to the IUPAC for the spelling of sulfur and aluminium. No new evidence has been provided, nor anything suggesting any of the key factors in the last request have changed. – NULL ‹talk›
    ‹edits›     06:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Wikipedia convention mandates that Solar System objects, including the Solar System itself, are proper nouns and are therefore to be entirely capitalised. See Talk:Solar System/Archive 2#Move to Solar System Serendipodous 15:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, rather than "mandates" it points out that they are proper nouns. Wikipedia does not make things up. It documents them. If Sun is a proper noun we use it as a proper noun. If sun is a common noun, and it is, we use it as a common noun. It was not Wikipedia that started calling Sun a proper noun. Comets are generally thought of as proper nouns, but the article comet Hale–Bopp uses Hale–Bopp as a common noun. The advice on comets is to use the common name if there is one, such as Halley's comet, and if not use Comet xyz - which makes it a proper noun. We often give proper noun status to objects that barely deserve proper noun status. It is odd that we would do so for comets, when that is not normal. Apteva (talk) 19:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Any name of a particular object is a proper noun. It doesn't matter what kind of object it is. It only matters that it's a name of a particular object. Halley's Comet is the name of a particular object. --Trovatore (talk) 19:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
While in general that is true, but "the third car at the stop sign at 9:04 AM" is a particular object, but definitely not a proper noun. We may name meteors, but do we give names to every meteorite? Just giving a name to something is not sufficient to give it proper name status, although that is normally done. We say "Red Fire Truck" when really it is just this red fire truck to give it a name, but the name does not give it proper name status. The question of whether something is a proper noun or not does not produce a cut and dry answer. The literature is split on whether Halley's comet or Halley's Comet should be used. An exact equal number of books published from 2000 to 2008 appear to use each name, with comet trending upward and Comet trending downward.[2] The ones that use Halley's comet may have looked it up in the dictionary. Maybe the ones that used Halley's Comet looked it up on Wikipedia, for what that is worth. Apteva (talk) 19:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
You have to distinguish between names and descriptions. Names are always always always proper nouns. Always. "Red fire truck" is a description. But Halley's Comet is a name — it isn't just saying that it's a comet that pertains in some way to Halley, because he could have had others. --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
If it was a car would it be Halley's Car? Not likely, it would be Halley's car. But really I have no interested in why, but only what something is called. If it is called something we should use that name, and the dictionary and half of the books published are very explicit - it is called Halley's comet, and not Halley's Comet. It is called comet Hale–Bopp, not Comet Hale-Bopp. Why would anyone want to call either anything different, knowing that? Apteva (talk) 22:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
It would be Halley's Car if that were the name of the car, which it would most likely not be — it's just a description; Halley has a car and this is it. On the other hand, Halley's Comet is most definitely the name of the comet. There is no ambiguity about that at all. Halley doesn't have a comet; this is the comet named Halley's Comet. --Trovatore (talk) 22:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
And why then would the New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors use Halley's comet and comet Hale–Bopp? Are they wrong? Or are we wrong? Someone must be less wrong than the other - which? Apteva (talk) 23:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Grammatically there is no ambiguity whatsoever — it's a proper noun. Some sources may decide to present some proper nouns in lowercase, or partly in lowercase. Most times I don't agree with that (there are a few exceptions, such as von etc, or when the name's owner wants lowercase). --Trovatore (talk) 23:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

While I can't support Apteva's campaign, based as it is on a new made-up theory of proper names relative to punctuation and styling, I also can't just let some of these claims slide. There's really only one reason that we capitalize Halley's Comet, and that is that the IAU says to. MOS:CAPS says not to, except for the exception/example that says to, and the various claims of "it's a proper name" do nothing to explain why a majority of sources say Halley's comet, not treating it as a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 06:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It simply is a proper name. There is no "treating" it. This is a firm point of English grammar, whether the sources capitalize it or not. Now, whether you capitalize all proper names is a style point. --Trovatore (talk) 09:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not aware of any grammars or style guides that say it might be OK to not capitalize a proper name. Where are you getting this stuff? Dicklyon (talk) 01:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Do you capitalize the v in John von Neumann? Do you deny that John von Neumann is a proper name? "Proper name" is not the same as "capitalized". Any name (as opposed to description) of a particular object, regardless of what kind of object, is a proper name. --Trovatore (talk) 01:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I'll grant you that we do allow exceptions to respect the capitalization of foreign names in their own language. I don't think that's relevant here. Dicklyon (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Without commenting on any individual publication and their relevant style guides, there's a reasonable but not always apparent distinction between the common term and the proper name. The example used in the last discussion is the sentence "Halley's comet is named Halley's Comet". One is a common term making use of standard English possessive grammar, and the other is a proper name. When written in lowercase, "Halley's comet" would be read as "the comet Halley discovered", while "Halley's Comet" would be read as "1P/Halley". It's not unreasonable to use both in a single article and still be perfectly compliant with MOS, and the appropriate case is determined by context. In prose, either may reasonably exist, but as the article title, only the proper name is appropriate. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I just realized what had always tickled my brain about 1P/Halley. It's 867-5309/Jenny. I'm sure you were all very anxious to know this and I'm happy to be able to put your minds at rest. --Trovatore (talk) 03:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Nonsense. It's completely unreasonable to use both in one sentence. I bet you'll never find an example of that in print, for this comet or any other. Halley's comet does not mean something different from Halley's Comet. It's just a question of whether the writer thinks of it as a proper name or not, or wants to capitalize it for some other reason or not. Dicklyon (talk) 01:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
e.e. cummings' comet? — kwami (talk) 02:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Not that it's terribly important, but Cummings is not a good example. The e. e. cummings thing was invented by other people. Cummings played around a lot with typographical conventions in his poetry, but in prosaic life he wrote his name perfectly normally. There are folks who actually have chosen to lowercase their names, but when people try to think of an example of this phenomenon, they always seem to think of Cummings, who did not do it. --Trovatore (talk) 03:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry you don't agree, Dick, but it's certainly neither nonsense nor unreasonable. The sentence I gave you is a well-formed and grammatically correct sentence, and I'm surprised you can't distinguish between the semantic differences of the two cases. I suppose you similarly can't distinguish between terms in the sentence "My dog is named My Dog"? – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 03:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
From proper noun, "they may only be unique within the appropriate context. For instance, India has a ministry of home affairs (a common-noun phrase) called the Ministry of Home Affairs (its proper name)". Exactly the distinction I mentioned above. Is this also nonsense, Dick? – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 03:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the "Who's on first" problem. It's simply not applicable to Halley's comet, no matter what you call your dog. Dicklyon (talk) 07:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
It's just really hard to believe that you can't see that it's a proper name. The only possible alternative explanation is that it's a description, that you're saying "see look, there are some comets, and one of them pertains to Halley". But that's ridiculous; that's clearly not what's happening. It's the name of the comet, and therefore ipso facto a proper name, no matter how anyone capitalizes it. --Trovatore (talk) 08:02, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Cause of high close approach speeds

The high geocentric close approach speeds of Halley's Comet are high because it has a retrograde motion, not its high eccentricity(as the article said). I tested this with Solex, by loading 1P Halley, making a copy, and changing the inclination by subtracting the actual one from 180. I used a 0.5 AU cutoff, as in the citation of the article, with the Earth-Moon barycenter. In the range from years 0-4000 the highest speed for the reversed 1P is 36.9 km/s and the lowest for the real 1P was 56.0 km/s. Saros136 (talk) 03:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This was also the case with all the other objects I tested. Saros136 (talk) 03:59, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Here is the table (the reversed Halley is below) Saros136 (talk) 04:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

451 CE Apparition

This appearance may have been referred to by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Brittania (Book VIII Chapter XIV) as the "star of marvellous bigness", described as having marked the death of Ambrosius. This may be coincidence (the 1066 appearance was well known when his was writing), but the dates would match the period he set his tales in, which is interesting...

DLH 81.155.237.210 (talk) 22:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

1456

The Ottoman Empire did not invade the Balkans in that year. I edited that bit and for some unfathomable reason Materialscientist edited it back and I got a message over not engaging in test edits. I'm not going to get into an edit war over this. Someone else can correct the info and deal with whatever turf issues Materialscientist has.89.121.160.79 (talk)

It was Ruslik0 who reverted you, I've just posted a note on your talk, because you neither explained your edit nor provided a source for it. How comes they besieged Belgrade but did not invade the Balkans? Materialscientist (talk) 09:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Because they had been in the Balkans for about a century at that time and controlled most of the region. Belgrade is way at the opposite end from where they first landed, which was at Galipoli.89.121.160.79 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Changed to Kingdom of Hungary. Serendipodous 10:51, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Spelling and Pronounciation

I disagree strongly with the implication that Halley spelled his name 5 different ways. This is extremely unlikely and needs more credible citations than the one is given here. I fail to see how the MISspellings of his name are at all relevant. Given the state of communication during his lifetime, it would be unlikely to be unable to find misspellings of a famous name - since all the spellings ARE correctly someone's surname. If some official scientific body misspelled his name (intentionally or in official documents) then that would be notable (since scientist's names are given careful attention in attributions), but not really relevant here. Given that the claims about spelling are simply wrong, so are the claims about the variety of pronunciations. WHY is this section HERE AT ALL?? I have always pronounced it "Hail E" but if Edmund Halley pronounced his name "Haw lee" or "Hal E" then that is clearly important to note. Is there some disagreement by historians about these facts? This section needs a re-write. Alternate spellings are either pervasive and need mention, or not; but plainly he knew how to spell his own name correctly. Same with pronunciation. If I am correct, then this entire section should be removed and replaced by a simple statement of fact about how he pronounced his own name.Abitslow (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Edmund Halley presumably spelled his name "Halley". We don't have tape recordings from that era; we have no idea how he pronounced it. All we have are written records, and they conflict. Misspellings of names are the only clues we have to contemporary pronunciations, unless Halley was the subject of a rhyming couplet somewhere. Serendipodous 00:02, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
The modern pronunciation is usually the same as the "Halle" in Halle Berry, to rhyme with "valley", as evidenced from a Royal Astronomical Society song from 1910. The eighteenth-century pronunciation was probably "Hawley", but the longer vowel has been shortened in a lot of English words since the eighteenth century. The language itself has changed and I can't see a strong reason to affect an archaic pronunciation in this instance when we usually don't with other proper nouns, though it's a matter of personal choice. Lachrie (talk) 05:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Era Names

I remember reading this page some years ago, and have noticed that the era names were changed from BC/AD to BCE/CE over that time. Looking over the revision history, it seems that Materialscientist switched them over on Oct. 23, 2011, and has been reverting attempts to change them back. However, the original change appears to me to be in contradiction to WP:BCE, which states "Do not change the established era style in an article . . . A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change;" and "Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change." Since this has been a cause of repeated edit warring over the past two years, pending discussion here, I'd like to change them back to the original style which was present for the previous nine years. Korossyl (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Please do. Lachrie (talk) 05:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


Good catch! However, for precision, it looks like the initial wholesale change was made by User:Eastaer. Materialscientist then caught some stragglers, leaving an edit summary that said something about "consistency of eras". Materialscientist does not seem to have edited the article for almost two months prior to that, so it's possible (s)he didn't notice that the longstanding usage here was AD/BC. --Trovatore (talk) 04:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Ah, right back at you. I missed that, thanks! And apologies, then, to Materialscientist for the misidentification. Korossyl (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

164BC Discrepancy

The 2nd list item under Apparitions identifies the date as 12 November 164 BCE, while the caption for the image of the tablet in the first subsection (Prior to 1066) states "Observation of Halley's Comet, recorded in cuneiform on a clay tablet between 22 and 28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum."

Which was it; September or November? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikierroneous (talk • contribs) 14:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

November 12 was the date of perihelion. It was visible before that date. Saros136 (talk) 08:16, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

A second contradiction:

Left pic: A Babylonian tablet recording Halley's comet during an appearance in 164 BC. At the British Museum in London „(you can see 41462 in the text)“

Right pic: Observation of Haley's Comet, recorded in Cuneiform on a clay tablet between 22-28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum, London. BM 41462

--Palitzsch250 (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Non-gravitational effects

The sentence I replaced , These orbital changes can cause deviations in its perihelion of four days, seems supported by the source if we take its statement about 1P/Halley without context. As if to say four days is the maximum, and presumably the average is less. A book by the same author, Comets, makes it clear that four days is about the average difference and that it comes late. I'm going to put more about the NG forces too. Saros136 (talk) 07:31, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

calculation of the comets return

I removed the statement ...it did not pass through its perihelion until 13 March 1759, the attraction of Jupiter and Saturn having caused a retardation of 618 days.I haven't seen the source for the sentence I removed, but the same thing is in Comets, by Yeomans, so I'll judge it using that book. Referring to the calculations by Alexis-Claude Clairaut before the recovery in 1758. Yeomans wrote ...Clairut established that the interval between the 1682 and 1759 perihelion passage would be 618 days longer than the corresponding interval between 1607 and 1682; 518 days due to Jupiter's influence and the remaining 100 days due to Saturn's. His calculated date was nearly 33 days too late, and the 618 days refers to that calculation. Jupiter and Saturn do not account for all the diifferences either; they didn't know about Neptune and ignored smaller planets. But those aren't the biggest problems. The 1607-1682 interval was not a demonstration of the unperturbed orbit, so the longer interval is not a sign that Jupiter and Saturn had that long of a retarding effect in the 1682-1759 one. Better ways to compare the effect of perturbations are to use the period given (or deduced from) orbital elements at one pass, or for better and more refined comparisons use software to make calculations for both the real and unperturbed orbits. For the first method, the JPL Horizons period from 1682 elements, 28287.21 days as opposed to the actual gap of 27,937.76 days between the two perihelion dates which suggests the perturbations shortened the gap by 350 days. There are some factors ignored here, so for the more refined method I've used Solex. (To ignore perturbation of the planets on the minor bodies, the user needs to right-click on the names of the chosen planets.) the predicted 1759 date was March 16.66, and for the unperturbed comet it was June, 14.0, later by 89.3 days. Using only the perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn the date is March 23.57, earlier than the unperturbed one by 82 days. The planets made the comet reach perihelion earlier. Saros136 (talk) 15:27, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

This is original research. Can't you just put the source back with the line rephrased? Serendipodous 17:58, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I do get carried away with this stuff. I would not use my investigations as a source-OR-but if I discover a truth, it is something that probably can be sourced. That each orbit is perturbed, and that Jupiter and Saturn have the greatest but not the only effect, can be. That other effects were neglected for practical reasons or were unknown can be. In fact this can all be found in the book I used. It can be demonstrated with simple arithmetic that the 1682-1759 gap is shorter than the average one observed, and this means the length of the 1682-1759 interval is not a sign of a retarding effect by the giant planets.
I would like to make a contribution, not a rephrasing, to this article on Clairaut's work. Yeomans's book is a history of observations and research on comets and will be an excellent source. The problem is space of course is space. There should be even more about the calculations leading up to the 1910 apparition, which were more important scientifically. I'm thinking we should have another article on the history of the calculations here. Saros136 (talk) 05:29, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Still, with all due deference to your scientific knowledge, until you do find a source, I'm keeping the sourced information in. This would appear to be a WP:VNT situation. Serendipodous 08:07, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
It is not a matter of sources or VNT. Whoever wrote the item in question would have written exactly the same thing with the book I mentioned by Yeomans. He may have drawn from the one that is the source for the article, although Yeomans wrote about the subject a long still earlier. But there is more to the story. The 618 day effect is presented only as a prediction of Clariut, with uncertainty. His calculations were hurried, so he could announce the prediction before the recovery of Comet Halley. Claiuit said give or take a month, and that was about what the error proved to be. He naturally neglected the effects of the smaller planets. That is why he wrote as if difference between the 1607-1682 and 1682-1759 gaps was due the effects of Saturn and Jupiter.By the way, ithe second of those intervals was 585 days longer. He did in fact succeed in presenting the results before recovery. Later he refined his prediction, corrected errors, and got a more accurate date. Yeomans's book also has a more modern analysis of the source of his errors. Saros136 (talk) 06:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
OK, then cite Yoemans' book and rewrite the line. Serendipodous 07:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
This is what I was planning: The comet arrived at perihelion on March 13, 1759, which was 76.49 years after the last pass, which is shorter than the average interval since it has been observed, but 585 days longer than the one from 1607-1759. The key prediction was made by Alexis-Claude Clairaut, who said the gap time between the 1682 perihelion and the upcoming 1759 one would be 618 days longer than the preceeding one, give or take a month. Clairaut hurried the calculations so he could present the results before the recovery, but after the comet left he refined his calculated date and got a more accurate one. There was controversy over whether his original prediction should be considered accurate or not, with his supporters and detractors using different standards. This is an additional source: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1993JHA....24....1W/0000001.000.html Saros136 (talk) 07:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
The key element of the phrase you removed was how the actual date of arrival differed from Halley's prediction. That's what the line is about. If there are other considerations, then they should be included, but they are secondary. Serendipodous 07:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
The 618 day figure and the April 13 date both come from Clairaut. Saros136 (talk) 17:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

[outdent]Yes, but they still need to be contrasted with Halley's figures. Serendipodous 22:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Halley didn't give figures. His methods were to not good enough to be very precise. He initially predicted 1758-1759, sometimes wrote it would come in 1758, but in 1717 (a later work) , in a paper published posthumously, predicted late 1758 or early 1759. Saros136 (talk) 05:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Then that needs to be in there too. Serendipodous 09:54, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Magnitude during 1986 return.

The attribution for the statement that 1P/Halley only reached magnitude +2·1 during its 1986 passage notes that quantity as being its observed magnitude on the day of its predicted maximum brightness. Between 19 and 25 April the comet unexpectedly brightened by one magnitude to reach its true maximum brightness, making it a naked eye object in the evening twilight. [1] User: DavidFRAS (password forgotten). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.46.19 (talk) 14:57, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://cometography.com/pcomets/001p_light.html

Protection of Halley's Comet?

I'm not sure where to put this, although I'm sure there's a specific method somewhere which I am violating, but in the last few months there's been a bit of IP vandalism; earlier IPs had been making constructive edits, but recently they've vandalized the article 7 times in the last few months alone. Perhaps a temporary protection (~1 month) on the article? Most other articles on significant celestial bodies are protected, including all of the planets and the Sun. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 18:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation

NY Times article in refs notes a third likely pronunciation "rhyming with bawley, favoured by Colin Ronan, one of Halley's biographers". Shouldn't this also be noted in Wikipedia?

It is mentioned in Edmond Halley's article. Serendipodous 08:52, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

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direct contradiction

"These observations supported a number of longstanding hypotheses about comet construction, particularly Fred Whipple's "dirty snowball" model, which correctly predicted that Halley would be composed of a mixture of volatile ices – such as water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia – and dust. The missions also provided data that substantially reformed and reconfigured these ideas; for instance, it is now understood that the surface of Halley is largely composed of dusty, non-volatile materials, and that only a small portion of it is icy."

This paragraph is contradictory. Either the "dirty snowball" theory is correct, or the "data that substantially reformed and reconfigured" it is correct. It cannot be both. "data that substantially reformed and reconfigured" really means "proved wrong." Since neither assertion is supported by reference, it's not apparent if any of this information is true.Nickrz (talk) 21:56, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

In its essence, it is correct. It is just a "snowy dirtball", rather than a "dirty snowball." Serendipodous 11:46, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. A wiseass remark is always helpful.Nickrz (talk) 15:56, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

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MOID

Does anyone know the Earth MOID of Comet Halley? --212.186.7.98 (talk) 17:18, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Earth MOID = 0.0638 AU (9.54 million km) -- Kheider (talk) 18:10, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. --212.186.7.98 (talk) 09:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

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Babylonians in 100BC?

From Babylon, one can learn that Babylon was a key kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia from the 18th to 6th centuries BC. The region was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.

The source for this appears to be the British Museum, the claim about Halley's comet can be seen in the caption. [3] I don't have access to the Nature article [4] that describes the claim in detail, can somebody check this and possibly give more detail? Or am I misunderstanding something about Babylonian tablets? power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Babylon, the province not the kingdom, continued to exist under the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Sasanian Empire. "Under the Parthian and Sassanid Empires, Babylon (like Assyria) became a province of these Persian Empires for nine centuries, until after AD 650. It maintained its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Examples of their culture are found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity was introduced to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest." Dimadick (talk) 06:50, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I still have a few questions, but they're related to the (red-link) Babylonian tablet, which I'll look at creating. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Disproof of being an atmospheric disturbance

The first paragraph under "computation of orbit" states that 

Halley was the first comet to be recognized as periodic. Until the Renaissance, the philosophical consensus on the nature of comets, promoted by Aristotle, was that they were disturbances in Earth's atmosphere. This idea was disproved in 1577 by Tycho Brahe, who used parallax measurements to show that comets must lie beyond the Moon.

I dont see how parallax being used to gauge distance beyond the moon constitutes disproof of a comet being an atmospheric disturbance back in 1577. Did they know in the 16th century that the atmosphere had an upper limit? This interpretation of the historical facts seem to be very 21st century-centric and hindsight biased.

Air and atmosphere were thought to be parts of the Earthly world while outside Moon the aether filled heavens lied. Ruslik_Zero 20:47, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Flammarion's "claim" - opposite evidence

Quote from this article:

But… Here is what Flammarion writes in scientific journal in February, 1910 ( Cammille Flammarion, La rencontre de la cométe, Bulletin de la société astronomique de France, février 1910, p.60-61):

So, the "claim" looks to be a misinterpretation of astronomer's words by New York Times (or other) journalists. Одуванчик Одуванчикович Одуванчиков (talk) 16:11, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Is apparition the correct word?

Apparition appears 41 times in the article, but I wonder if appearance is a better word. According to Oxford dictionary, an apparition is 1) "a ghost or ghostlike image of a person", or 2) "the appearance of something remarkable or unexpected, typically an image of this type". Is the word apparition common among astronomers and Oxford is missing that definition? If not, consider replacing with the simpler, clearer word "appearance". –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:06, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Apparition is the correct word. Also see here, if you want a reference. 89.168.85.237 (talk) 14:55, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Star of Bethlehem

How does this article fit into the Star of Bethlehem category? --Whiteguru (talk) 09:43, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

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