COMETS SOMETIMES RECEIVE STRANGE NAMES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23405, 22 July 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

COMETS SOMETIMES RECEIVE STRANGE NAMES

One Man Made a Hobby of Discovering, Them

By RONALD. McINTOSH, F.R.A.S.

. QOMET Pons-Winnecke has had its 1 clay, and! now it; is off again on ' its never-ending journey, its brief and inglorious tranuit witnessed by very few apart from the astronomers who continue to peer after it as it - dashes off into the remoter regions 1 of the solar system for another six years of hibernation. Perhaps a more . undistinguished comet could, not be » imagined. . Ever since the • days of I Napoleqn,, when it was first detected by human. eyes; it' has never possessed'the glory of a tail,- a feature which it shares in common with • the vast majority of comets of short period. * ~ In spite of this handicap in popular estimation-, the cornet has provided much 'of interest to astronomers, for 1 sundry delays in its'arrival in the sun's neighbourhood have indicated that perhaps comets have to swim against an unseen resisting medium in the central part of the siolar sj'stem. Then, as , recently as 1916, the earth actually passed through the track of the comet, and a splendid shower of meteors, the deb?is it had cast off in the course of its journey, was witnessed in the northern hemisphere. . Close to the Earth In 1927 the comet was for fully a month a naked-eye object in the southern sky, passing at that time remarkably close to the earth, and it was used by astronomers as a yardstick to check the scale of distances adopted for the various units of the 'solar system,- a role which prior to that time had been played only by Venus and Eros. The man in the street, not caring for a million miles one way or the other in astronomical figures, is probably more interested in the high T sounding, hyphenated name borne by this tailless, insignificant comet.ary visitor. The story of its naming is quite an interesting one. Early in the nineteenth century there was a humble concierge at the Marseilles Observatory who took his work' so seriously that he spent a good deal of his time searching for new comets. So well did ho occupy himself at this voluntary task that in the Bhort space of 27 years ho discovered no fewer than 37 comets, a total which has not been approached by any other astronomer, professional or amateur. It has always been th<3 custom in astronomical circles to bestow upon each new ethereal visitor the name of the person who discovered it; eo when, in 1819, the indefatigable door-keeper, whoso namo was Pons, discovered another comet, the much-used name of Pons was given to it. Return Every Six Years Although calculations revealed that Pons' new comet would return to the earth's neighbourhood every six years, it succeeded in escaping detection during its subsequent five returns, and astronomers were beginning to think that it had been irretrievably lost like so many comets before it, when Winnecke, a professional German astronomer, re-discovered the object. Thereafter the comet bore the honour tf its miposing double name.

It is interesting to recall that Pons did very well for himself out of his habit of discovering comets, for successive directors of the Marseilles Observatory taught him astronomy. He became a professional astronomer, and, before his death, had been director of two observatories himself.

Besides the honour attached to the Eerpetuation of one's name in the eavens, comet . medals and money prizes have been awarded in the past to astronomers fortunate in adding to tho sun's large family of comets, and it is not;surprising, therefore, that the search for new objects has never lacked its devotees, although at the present time most of these objects are detected on photographic plates exposed to tho heavens for other purposes. One American astronomer who discovered five comets and received a cash prize for each of them was able to build himself a home on the proceeds, and, appropriately enough, he bestowed upon his dwelling the title of Comet House. New Zealand Observers

There are cases, however, where discoverers of comets are not fortunate enough to have their names attached to their finds. Many people in New Zealand saw the daylight comet of 1927 days before the man whose name was eventually bestowed upon it; but none of them took the trouble to communicate their discovery to an observatory. On other occasions the world's observatories arc virtually inundated with telegrams from discoverers of bright objects. This happened as recently as April of this year, when a score or more astronomers detected a

conspicuous comet in the north which has remained hidden from those who dwell in the southern hemisphere. It would have been an excess of cruelty, both to astronomers and to the comet, to 1 ave weighed it down with a couple of dozen names of very mixed nationalities, so the comet eventually escaped from our neighbourhood bearing only the names of the three men who were first to see it in point of time, and when one reads that its name is Jurlof-Achmarof-Hassel it will be recognised that the name, although it could have been worse, is quite bad enough. Halley's Comet New Zealand is well represented in; the cometary world, for 110 fewer than five such objects owe their discovery; to the energies of the Dominion's amateur astronomers. The late John Grigg, at his Thames observatory, early this century was first to report four; new (Comets while Mr. A. Getldes, only a few years ago, blazed his name in; the skies by his discovery, in the first few minutes of the first search he had undertaken for comets, of an object which had not previously been detected. Normally 120 hours' searching must be undertaken before a new, comet is likely] to be detected, if averages are to be; believed. • ; " ' ■"! - - - : j Halley's comet, strangely enough, was not seen by that observer until many hundreds of years had elapsed after its first discovery. The comet had been known and feared since the very earliest days of the history of mankind, but; it required the genius of Halloy to detect that the successive appearances: of magnificent comets at intervals of; roughly 75 years were really manifestations of the same comet.

With confidence he predicted another return of this now-famous comet in the year 1788, and although .Halloy himself did not live to see his prediction verified, the comet lived up to his promise, establishing for the first timo that these bodies could and did, move in closed orbits. There could be no cavilling at the bestowal of the name of Halley upon this object.