C / 1901 G1 (Great Comet)
| C / 1901 G1 (Great Comet) [i] | |
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The Great Comet of 1901 on May 11th
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| Properties of the orbit ( animation ) | |
| Orbit type | parabolic |
| Numerical eccentricity | 1.0 |
| Perihelion | 0.245 AU |
| Inclination of the orbit plane | 131.1 ° |
| Perihelion | April 24, 1901 |
| Orbital velocity in the perihelion | 85.1 km / s |
| history | |
| Explorer | Viscara |
| Date of discovery | April 12, 1901 |
| Older name | 1901 I, 1901a |
| Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles . | |
C / 1901 G1 (Great Comet) (also called Comet Viscara ) was a comet that could be seen with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere in 1901 . Due to its extraordinary brightness, it is counted among the " Great Comets ".
Discovery and observation
When the comet was first seen in the morning sky of April 12, 1901 by an observer named Viscara, manager of an estancia in the Departamento Paysandú , Uruguay , it was already visible to the naked eye and had a short tail . This first comet of the 20th century was observed almost exclusively from the southern hemisphere . It grew rapidly in brightness as it moved toward its closest approach to the sun .
The comet was first seen in Queenstown (South Africa) on the morning of April 23, and a day later by David Gill and Robert Innes at the Royal Observatory on the Cape of Good Hope . At that time it already had a 10 ° long tail. The tail was slightly curved and the comet's nucleus was yellowish in color. He was also seen from Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia that day.
The brightness of the comet increased even after it had passed the earth and reached a maximum at dusk around May 5, the tail was fanned out several times at this time and showed a weak 45 ° long plasma tail and a 15 ° long curved dust tail .
The comet could be observed with the naked eye until May 20, and it could be followed with telescopes until October.
The comet reached a magnitude of 1 mag on May 5th . According to other information, the brightness even reached −1.5 mag.
Effects on the zeitgeist
The Boers , who were waging war against the British in South Africa at that time , saw the comet and viewed it as a kind of omen .
The Aborigines in Northern Australia were terrified by the comet, fearful that a bundle of spears would fall on the earth and kill everyone.
Orbit
For the comet, only one parabolic orbit could be determined from about 160 observation data over a period of 43 days by Charles J. Merfield , which is inclined by about 131 ° to the ecliptic . The comet thus runs in the opposite direction (retrograde) like the planets through its orbit. At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet passed on April 24th, it was located at a distance of about 36.6 million km from the sun in the area within the orbit of Mercury . Already on April 10th it had passed Venus at a distance of 84.1 million km and on April 21st at a distance of 28.4 million km it passed Mercury. On April 30, it reached the closest approach to Earth with 0.83 AU (≈ 124.2 million km) .
When the comet appeared in 1901, the eccentricity of its orbit was not significantly changed. It is unlikely to return to the inner solar system , or will return many tens or hundreds of thousands of years later .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lorenzo Kropp: Ueber den Cometen 1901 a. In: Astronomical News . Vol. 156, No. 8, 1901, p. 128m DOI: /10.1002/asna.19011560806 .
- ↑ David Gill: The Great Comet of 1901, as observed at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope . In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Vol. LXI. 8, 1901, pp. 508-512 ( bibcode : 1901MNRAS..61..508G ).
- ^ DAJ Seargent: The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars . Springer, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-387-09512-7 , p. 142.
- ^ Peter Grego: Blazing a Ghostly Trail: ISON and Great Comets of the Past and Future . Springer, Cham 2013, ISBN 978-3-319-01774-7 , pp. 123-124.
- ^ Donald K. Yeomans: NASA JPL Solar System Dynamics: Great Comets in History. Retrieved June 17, 2014 .
- ^ P. Moore, R. Rees: Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-89935-2 , p. 271.
- ^ DW Hamacher, RP Norris: Comets in Australian Aboriginal Astronomy . In: Journal for Astronomical History & Heritage . Vol. 14, No. 1, 2011, pp. 31-40 ( bibcode : 2011JAHH ... 14 ... 31H ).
- ↑ C / 1901 G1 (Great Comet) 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 .