Comet of the century ?
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 04:32
VIEWED: 1451
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Interesting Halley history.
Quote:
n 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published his Principia, in which he outlined his laws of gravity and motion. His work on comets was decidedly incomplete. Although he had suspected that two comets that had appeared in succession in 1680 and 1681 were the same comet before and after passing behind the Sun (he was later found to be correct; see Newton's Comet), he was unable to completely reconcile comets into his model. Ultimately, it was Newton's friend, editor and publisher, Edmond Halley, who, in his 1705 Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets, used Newton's new laws to calculate the gravitational effects of Jupiter and Saturn on cometary orbits. This calculation enabled him, after examining historical records, to determine that the orbital elements of a second comet which had appeared in 1682 were nearly the same as those of two comets which had appeared in 1531 (observed by Petrus Apianus) and 1607 (observed by Johannes Kepler). Halley thus concluded that all three comets were in fact the same object returning every 76 years, a period that has since been amended to every 75–76 years. After a rough estimate of the perturbations the comet would sustain from the gravitational attraction of the planets, he predicted its return for 1758.
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I know I'm not supposed to believe in omens, but I ... kind of do in a different sort of way. Mark Twain was certainly worth remark after all. Also worth noting is that my dad and I chose ravens as our "totum" when I was 15, I put it in quotes because our view of it isn't exactly the classical view of it, more like its an animal you feel connected to, that you see as good when it is near you, that God could use to get your attention etc. Anyways about nine months later my little brother was born (he's adopted, but we've known him since he was born, didn't come to live with us until later though) and his biomom named him Raven, without any prompting from me or anyone, its just what she did. My mom and her husband were like grandparents to him for the first few years, then he was taken away from mom and came to us. But yeah, my lil' brother is my totum too. He is a gift of gifts, he is the missing piece that I knew I was looking for all through my girlhood, I knew something was lacking until he came along. Can you tell we're really close?
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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