C / 1819 N1 (Great Comet)
| C / 1819 N1 (Great Comet) [i] | |
|---|---|
| Properties of the orbit ( animation ) | |
| Orbit type | parabolic |
| Numerical eccentricity | 1.0 |
| Perihelion | 0.342 AU |
| Inclination of the orbit plane | 80.8 ° |
| Perihelion | June 28, 1819 |
| Orbital velocity in the perihelion | 72.1 km / s |
| history | |
| Explorer | Johann Georg Tralles |
| Date of discovery | July 1, 1819 |
| Older name | 1819 II |
| Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles . | |
C / 1819 N1 (Great Comet) (also called Comet Tralles ) was a comet that could be seen with the naked eye in 1819 . Due to its great brightness, it is counted among the " Great Comets ". It was the first comet whose polarization pattern was observed.
Discovery and observation
On June 26, 1819, the comet was of the earth seen from about 4:55 UT to 8:32 UT almost centrally from south to north before the sun passed. However, this event has not yet been observed.
The comet was first discovered on the evening of July 1, 1819 by Johann Georg Tralles in Berlin . The comet was north of the sun and could then be observed with the naked eye for several weeks in both the morning and evening sky. Two days after Tralles, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve made an independent discovery in Dorpat , the tail was already a few degrees long . Towards the end of the first week of July, the comet had a magnitude of 1 mag and a tail length of 7–8 ° .
As early as July, the comet was observed by many well-known astronomers of the time, such as Johann Elert Bode in Berlin , Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers in Bremen , Franz Xaver von Zach in Italy , Carl Friedrich Gauß in Göttingen , Friedrich Bernhard Gottfried Nicolai in Mannheim , Johann Franz Encke in Gotha , Honoré Flaugergues in Viviers and others.
The brightness of the comet steadily decreased the further it moved away from the sun; towards mid-August it was still 3 mag and towards the end of the month it sank below the level of visibility with the naked eye. In September there were only a few observations and the comet was only vaguely perceived. In October, Olbers and Struve were able to determine two more positions, the last observation was made by Struve on October 25th.
The comet reached a maximum brightness of 1 mag.
Impact on the zeitgeist
The comet appeared impressive enough to be observed by non-astronomers. Members of Stephen Harriman Long's Yellowstone expedition observed the comet in July 1819 during their trip to the Rocky Mountains .
Scientific evaluation
The Great Comet of 1819 occupies a special position in comet research because it was the first comet whose light was observed through a polarization filter. François Arago in Paris observed the comet's tail through his newly developed polariscope , a polarimeter , on July 3, 1819 , and found that the comet's light was partially polarized. This proved the existence of dust in the comet's tail, because it indicated that at least some of the comet's light was reflected or scattered sunlight.
Orbit
The first parabolic orbit for the comet was calculated by Alexis Bouvard in July 1819 . From 400 observations over a period of 105 days, only a parabolic orbit with limited precision could be determined for the comet, which is inclined by around 81 ° to the ecliptic . The comet's orbit is thus almost perpendicular to the planets' orbital plane. At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet passed on June 28, 1819, it was located at a distance of about 51.1 million km from the sun in the area within the orbit of Mercury . Already on June 25th it had reached the closest approach to the earth at a distance of about 0.67 AU / 99.9 million km.
When the comet appeared in 1819, the gravitational pull of the planets reduced the eccentricity of its orbit by about 0.0003. Due to the uncertain initial data, however, it cannot be deduced with certainty whether the comet is definitely moving on an elliptical orbit. It is unlikely to return to the inner solar system , or will return many tens or hundreds of thousands of years later .
The comet in literature
The chronicler of romance Karl August Varnhagen von Ense reported in his memoirs of a comet by him in 1819 in Baden-Baden was observed and considered omen for an assassination. It was probably the Great Comet of 1819.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b SOLEX 11.0 by A. Vitagliano. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015 ; accessed on May 2, 2014 .
- ↑ a b H. A. Peck: Definitive Orbit of Comet 1819 II. In: The Astronomical Journal. No. 584-585, Vol. XXV (8-9), 1906, pp. 61-72. ( bibcode : 1906AJ ..... 25 ... 61P )
- ^ John E. Bortle: International Comet Quarterly - The Bright-Comet Chronicles. Retrieved July 15, 2015 .
- ↑ a b G. W. Kronk: Cometography - A Catalog of Comets, Volume 2. 1800-1899 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 0-521-58505-8 , pp. 47-51.
- ^ P. Moore, R. Rees: Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-89935-2 , p. 270.
- ^ D. Leverington: Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 0-521-80840-5 , p. 196.
- ↑ C / 1819 N1 (Great Comet) in the Small-Body Database of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (English).
- ^ KA Varnhagen von Ense: Memories of one's own life. Volume 2: The Diplomatic Mission. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1971, p. 350.