This week: Comet Chameleon Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'
-Mark Twain |
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Hello, and welcome to my July 2020 edition of the Comety newsletter.
What's that? Oh... yeah, Comedy newsletter.
Well, I'm going to talk about comets anyway because there's one swinging by us right now.
The above link has some decent information and shiny pictures, so go there if you just want to read about how to see it or get some facts. We don't get to see comets all that often, and they're just plain cool.
Did I say cool? I meant cold. They're basically space snowballs. But before we knew that, all we knew was that there was some weird hairy thing in the sky. Yes, "comet" comes from an ancient word for "long hair," so they're the hippie freaks of the firmament.
"Hippie Freaks of the Firmament" would make a great band name, by the way. You can have that one for free.
And, just like with hippies, people of old thought comets were signs that civilization was about to collapse.
From Wikipedia: The year after the Great Comet of 1618, for example, Gotthard Arthusius published a pamphlet stating that it was a sign that the Day of Judgment was near. He listed ten pages of comet-related disasters, including "earthquakes, floods, changes in river courses, hail storms, hot and dry weather, poor harvests, epidemics, war and treason and high prices". By 1700 most scholars concluded that such events occurred whether a comet was seen or not.
You know, just in case you were getting the idea that conspiracy theories, and scientific efforts to debunk such theories, were anything new.
Now, to be fair to those ignorant savages, a comet can definitely be a portent of doom -- in the unlikely event that one slams into the Earth. Just ask the dinosaurs. Oh wait, you can't because they were wiped out by a comet.
But that was sixty million years ago, give or take, and the one in the sky right now has an approximately zero chance of hitting our planet (which, for the record, is roughly spherical -- just getting that out of the way).
This particular comet proved very difficult for me to even see. At first, it was only visible in the east during the pre-dawn hours. Not only is that too late for me to stay up until and too early for me to wake up for, but to the east of me is a bunch of very Earthly trees. Oh, sure, I could, you know, go somewhere, but that would involve me driving around at a time when I'd rather be asleep.
So I waited for it to show up in the northwest right after sunset, a time when I'm very much awake. Still trees, but I don't have to move very far to get a clear view of the sky.
And then, of course, there were clouds. So it wasn't looking good in terms of my doom-omen-viewing chances. I mean, how can I know that we're definitely doomed if I don't see the comet?
Oh, right. I could read the news.
But finally, Sunday night, just before my deadline for this editorial, I stood on the sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house with my bird-watching binoculars (that hadn't seen any use in, like, twenty years, because I don't watch birds). After reassuring said neighbor that, no, I'm not trying to see into her living room window and could she please turn off the light in there, as the sky darkened, I finally got a look at the cosmic hippie.
Yep. It's a comet.
Spoiler: civilization hasn't collapsed yet (though to be fair, it might by the time you read this).
Anyway, this newsletter is supposed to come out on Wednesday; Thursday is supposed to be the day of optimum comet-viewing. If you can see the Big Dipper from where you are (that is, northern hemisphere, relatively dark sky, no clouds), you'll be able to see it then near the "bowl" of that famous asterism (which is actually the saddle of the Great Bear, because of course Ursa Major is a combat bruin).
Just try not to get abducted by aliens while you're out there. Or, you know, by the secret police. |
Some funnies for your comet-viewing pleasure:
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Comedy: July 22, 2020 Issue [#10282]
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