dipper@utastro.UUCP (06/12/85)
Comet Halley is at conjunction with the sun today. We tell you what that means -- after this. June 12 Comet Halley at Conjunction Today Comet Halley reaches conjunction with the sun. Astronomers would say that Halley and the sun have the same longitude on the celestial sphere -- the imaginary sphere of the sky surrounding Earth. If you extend this imaginary sphere into the real space of the solar system, then you might see that today Comet Halley is passing on the far side of the sun from Earth. Right now the comet is more than three-and-half times farther from the sun than the distance from the Earth to the sun. Halley is traveling inward, though. By early next year, it'll come closer to the sun than the orbit of the planet Venus. Halley's Comet will be closest to the sun on February 9, 1986. Unfortunately, Halley will again be in conjunction with the sun on February 4th -- just five days earlier! That's why -- at this return of the comet -- we won't have as spectacular a view as our grandparents did in 1910. This time, when Halley is closest to the sun -- and brightest -- it'll be beyond the sun as seen from Earth -- and impossible to see from the Earth's vicinity in space. Incidentally, that's also the case today -- Halley's Comet is now hidden in the glare of the sun -- not due to reappear again at night until about mid-August. But if you could turn off the sun today -- and if you had a very large telescope -- then you'd find Comet Halley marching along just a little south of the sun on the dome of the sky. Script by Diana Hadley, Harlan Smith and Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin