A NEW COMET.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4193, 24 November 1883, Page 10 (Supplement)

A NEW COMET.

Thk recognition of the comet which was discovered early in the present month by Professor Brooks as the long expected comet of 1812 returning to visit once more the solar system, is an event which possesses much greater general interest than at first appears. After looking in vain for this comet for two or three years, and haying several false alarms caused by tho unexpected appearance of other comets, the astronomers, it sesnii, forgot the long-looked-for visitor, and for more than a fortnight after it had actually come in eight thoy took it for a complete stranger. It is bcarng down upon the sun out of the northern heavens, and by midwinter will be seen shining brilliantly in the evening sky, plainly visible, of course, to the naked eye, but probably not presenting anything like so grand an appearance a3 the great comet of last year. The verification which the return of this comet gives of the calculations of the astronomers presentsa very striking instance of tho knowledge thatthey have obtained of things that are going on beyond the earth. When this comet appeared in 1812 careful observations and computations were made to ascertain just what sort of a curve it made as itapproachedthe sun, swungaround it, and again darted off into space. This curve was, of course, a portion of the comet's orbit, but a very small portion, since no observations of this kind could be made except while the comet was near enough to the sun to be visible in telescopes. The astronomers measured this curvo so accurately that by applying tho laws of gravitation they were able to plot out the orbit of the comet through its whole extent, and to say that, although when it disappeared the heavena had apparently swallewed it up, yet it could not escape from the control of the sun, and would be back again in some seventy years. According to recent calculations, the comet was due at perihelion in September, 1884. Now that it has been seen winging its way back, the astronomers are able to say that it will reach its perihelion some time in January next, about eight months ahead of the calculated time. But considering that it takes the comet over seventy years to run the round of its orbit, and that the data they had to work upon were slight, the prediction of the calculators is to be regarded as a remarkably accurate one. Chained by the laws of their being to this little revolving globe, they have been able, by the aid of mathematics to follow the invisible course of a body which, having shone for a «hort time in the eveningsky.cusappeared entirelyfrom sight, and wended its way sereral thousand millions of miles into space. Years before it had ceased to move away from the sun and the earth they worn able to say that It would turn and come back again, and to-day we see the prediction verified, forlo! the comet that nearly threequarters of a century ago faded out of the sight of men is now again risible, rushing sunward, and re-illuminating its train as if in celebration of the return from its long journey out into the realm of starlight.— From the "New York Sun, 1' September 26.