C / 1556 D1
| C / 1556 D1 [i] | |
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The comet of 1556 over Constantinople, which was destroyed by an earthquake
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| Properties of the orbit ( animation ) | |
| Orbit type | parabolic |
| Numerical eccentricity | 1.0 |
| Perihelion | 0.491 AU |
| Inclination of the orbit plane | 32.4 ° |
| Perihelion | April 22, 1556 |
| Orbital velocity in the perihelion | 60 km / s |
| history | |
| Explorer | |
| Date of discovery | February 27, 1556 |
| Older name | 1556 |
| Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles . | |
C / 1556 D1 was a comet that could be seen with the naked eye in 1556 . Due to its extraordinary brightness, it is counted among the " Great Comets ".
Discovery and observation
The comet was first seen in the evening sky in late February 1556 . A general observation was made in the first week of March. An Augsburg chronicle reports that the apparent diameter of the comet was half the size of the moon and that the tail was like "the flame of a torch moved by the wind". Cornelis Gemma reported that the comet's head shone as brightly as Jupiter and that its color was that of Mars , but that the reddish color gradually faded. He observed a tail length of 4 ° .
Paul Fabricius , mathematician and physician at the court of Emperor Charles V in Vienna , described and drew the apparent path of the comet in the sky from March 4th to 15th, but for a long time only a small and very rough reproduction of his map was known . The detailed description and the original of this card were lost.
A chronicle from Genoa reports that the comet was visible for 12 days from April 4th and that the tail was directed first to the east, but then to the south after the comet had moved north. The comet was observed in Europe until mid or late April.
The 1556 comet was also observed in China . On March 1st it had a tail 1 ° in length, which grew to 3 ° before the comet disappeared around May 10th.
The comet reached a magnitude of −2 mag on March 14th .
Historical meaning
Like many of its predecessors, the comet of 1556 gave the public speculation by being seen as a messenger of bad luck and a sign of God. Scholars created astrological interpretations for the approaching end of the world , while a flood of writings with pseudoscientific content appeared for the blossoming bourgeoisie , in which the comet was the cause of all possible catastrophes (such as the earthquakes in Italy and Constantinople the year before ). was shown.
However, it was possibly of historical significance, as several chroniclers report, that he terrified Emperor Charles V to death when he appeared, so that he is said to have exclaimed: "His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant" (So with this symbol calls me my destiny). A few months later he handed over the imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand ; he had already renounced the crown of Spain in favor of his son Philip . This is possibly just a historical myth , with which the momentous event of his abdication should be underlaid with a "heavenly sign", but if it is true, the comet would have the world history not by causing catastrophes, but more subtly by psychological effects influenced at the highest level.
Scientific evaluation
Eighteenth- century astronomers first tried to derive orbital elements for this comet from the observations, but they had only imprecise information available, so that the efforts of Edmond Halley and others only yielded rather uncertain results. Dunthorne and Pingré independently came up with results suggesting that the comet of 1556 may have been a return of the Great Comet C / 1264 N1 of 1264. The comet would then have had an orbital period of about 292 years and a new return would have been expected in 1848. This theory was discussed controversially in wide circles at the time, but then in 1848 (and in the years before and after) no large comet appeared.
Exactly three hundred years after the appearance of the comet, Karl Ludwig von Littrow was able to find the original map of Fabricius in a Vienna archive in a much larger format than previously known, and he also succeeded in receiving Fabricius' treatise, in which his observations exactly were recorded. In his search for records of the comet, he also found a hitherto completely unknown work by the astronomer Joachim Heller from Nuremberg , in which he had recorded extremely detailed and precise position information on his observations of the comet. Heller had already discovered the comet on February 27 and was able to observe it until April 22.
On the basis of the newly found observation data, the inaccurate orbit elements of the comet previously calculated by Halley, John Russell Hind and others could be significantly improved by calculations by Martin Hoek , which also made an identity of the comets from 1264 and 1556 rather improbable.
According to current knowledge, the two comets of 1264 and 1556 have no connection.
Orbit
For the comet, due to the limited number of observations, only a parabolic orbit with limited precision could be determined, which is inclined by around 32 ° to the ecliptic . At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet passed on April 22, 1556, it was located at about 73.4 million km from the sun between the orbits of Mercury and Venus . As early as March 12th, it had approached the earth to about 0.084 AU / 12.5 million km, making it one of the comets closest to earth. This close proximity to the earth was also the reason for its observed brightness.
The comet of 1556 is unlikely to return to the inner solar system , or will return many tens or hundreds of thousands of years later .
Poetic meaning
Wilhelm Raabe can in his novel The Holy Born the comet in the spring of 1556 as a terrifying characters appear in the sky: "Since the twenty-eighth February namely looked all the people, old and young, noble and low, learned and unlearned - with horror and terror every night when the stars rose after a great celestial wonder, which at this time rose with the usual friendly lights in the heavenly hall and, from night to night, becoming more powerful and threatening, made its way to the midnight sea star. "
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ John R. Hind: On the expected return of the great comet of 1264 and 1556 . London, 1848, pp. 33-40.
- ^ Donald K. Yeomans: NASA JPL Solar System Dynamics: Great Comets in History. Retrieved June 13, 2014 .
- ↑ Hermann Gall: A terrifying wonder mark /… . Nuremberg, 1556. ( JPG; 364 kB )
- ^ André Führer: The change of the world view in the 16th century with special consideration of comet phenomena . University of Hamburg, 1998, p. 6. ( PDF; 364 kB )
- ^ Richard A. Proctor: Myths and Marvels of Astronomy . London, 1896, pp. 226-227.
- ^ AG Pingré: Cométographie ou Traité historique et théorique des comètes . Tome I, Paris, 1783, pp. 406-411 and pp. 502-507.
- ↑ CL v. Littrow: Three sources on the comet from 1556 . Vienna, 1856. ( PDF; 601 kB ).
- ↑ A. Reslhuber: Report on the comet of the years 975, 1264 and 1556 . Kremsmünster, 1857. ( PDF; 1.0 MB ).
- ^ GW Kronk: Cometography - A Catalog of Comets, Volume 1. Ancient - 1799 . Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-58504-0 , pp. 309-311.
- ↑ C / 1556 D1 in the Small-Body Database of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (English).
- ↑ SOLEX 11.0 A. Vitagliano. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015 ; accessed on May 2, 2014 .
