dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (01/01/86)
Today, for the first time in 76 years, Comet Halley comes closer to the sun than we are. More -- after this. January 1 The Year of the Comet Comet Halley starts off the new year today by crossing the orbit of the Earth around the sun. After today the comet is closer to the sun than our average distance of 93 million miles -- and its still heading inward. Though Halley crosses our orbit today, our planet and the comet are very far apart in space -- more than a hundred million miles apart. The distance between us and the comet will continue to increase for the next month. Halley is picking up speed fast now -- heading sunward -- due to reach perihelion, its closest point to the sun, on February 9. The comet will loop within 55 million miles of the star that binds it in orbit -- then sling back outwards again -- eventually to go beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune. When Halley is closest to the sun, Earth will be about 150 million miles from the comet -- on the opposite side of the solar system. It just so happens that tonight Earth reaches its own perihelion -- when we are just 9l-and-a-half million miles from the sun. The farthest the Earth ever gets from the sun is about 94 million miles. Halley`s Comet may be barely visible to the naked eye now -- in the west after sunset. To see it, you will need to go 20 or 30 miles from the lights of the city. As evening twilight ends, you will see a bright "star" low in the west -- really, the planet Jupiter. Halley is now about 20 degrees above Jupiter in the western twilight sky. Script by Deborah Byrd and Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin