Week 07
This Week in History: February 9-15
FEBRUARY 9, 1986: During its most recent return Comet 1P/Halley passes through perihelion at a heliocentric distance of 0.587 AU. Comet Halley’s 1986 return is a future “Comet of the Week,” and its entire history is the subject of a future “Special Topics” presentation. FEBRUARY 10, 1907: August Kopff at Heidelberg Observatory in Germany discovers …
Comet of the Week: PANSTARRS C/2017 T2
Perihelion: 2020 May 4.95, q = 1.615 AU After devoting my “Comet of the Week” last week to the first comet I ever observed, it seems appropriate to devote this week’s “Comet of the Week” to the brightest comet that is currently visible in our nighttime skies, and which is easily accessible for observations, at …
Special Topic: Centaurs
In previous “Special Topics” presentations I have focused on asteroid populations in the “main asteroid belt” between Mars and Jupiter, and on asteroids in near-Earth space. If, however, as is now widely believed to be the case, asteroids are among the “leftovers” of the planet formation process, we would accordingly expect asteroids to exist in …