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Omen. The Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the Norman conquest of England, includes a depiction of Halley’s Comet. People are seen warning King Harold the comet is a bad omen. Below the comet is a depiction of a fleet setting sail to invade England.
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Brahe. A bright comet, seen across Europe, was observed by a number of enlightened minds, including Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. His observations showed theories about the order of planets, moons and objects in our solar system were wrong and had to be rethought.
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Sungrazer. Called a Great Comet (there have been a few) and seen in daylight, this comet was seen by Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley and helped them to prove comets were part of the solar system. Like ISON, it was also a sungrazer and had a very long tail.
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Halley’s Comet. This was the year that Halley identified the short-period comet that bears his name, and also worked out that the comet would be visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. The comet last passed in 1986 and is expected to return in 2061.
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Multi-tail-ented. A comet with six — yes, count them, six — tails was seen in the sky. “I would have loved to have seen that,” says Schechner. The comet was observed in Europe and also in New England.
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Millerites. “The Millerites, a religious sect in New England, believed the end of the world was going to be predicted by a meteor storm and that a big comet would come.... And, wouldn’t you know it, a big comet did come,” says Schechner. “They prepared for the second coming, but obviously that didn’t happen.”
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Films. Halley’s Comet’s visit in 1986 was heralded with two disaster-predicting films. Lifeforce (1985) featured a vampire-carrying space ship in the comet’s coma, while Night of the Comet (1984) found the world’s population wiped out by a comet; with the exception of, like, two Valley Girls.
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Drops on Jupiter. In a spectacular scene, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and crashed into Jupiter. This was the first time a comet collision was observed by scientists as it happened, and offered an unprecedented opportunity to collect data.
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Hale-Bopp. “Probably the most beautiful (comet) I have seen in my life is Hale-Bopp,” says Schechner. “It was very beautiful, very nice.” The comet also gained notoriety because members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide as it passed, believing they would reach a UFO travelling in the comet’s tail.
