Unfortunately, in the week leading up to its solar rendezvous, the weather across much of the United States was persistently cloudy, hazy or foggy. Prospective comet viewers were told to look for the brightening comet, low in the east-southeast sky about an hour before sunrise. With this as a background, Ikeya-Seki suddenly broke onto the scene, and with it, public interest in viewing it increased almost exponentially overnight.Īs a youngster, growing up in the Bronx, I can still recall the increasing excitement of watching local and national television news reports on the approaching comet, as well as reading full-page feature articles about it in the local newspapers. Two of these sungrazers, (in 18) not only developed very long tails but also achieved the rare distinction of having been bright enough to be seen in broad daylight with the unaided eye. In honor of his work, this special group of comets is named the Kreutz Sungrazers. ![]() ![]() And it's quite probable that these fragments, have themselves broken up repeatedly as they've orbited the sun, resulting in periods ranging from about 500 to 800 years. In the year 1888 astronomer Heinrich Kreutz (1854-1907) noted that sungrazing comets, all followed along approximately the same orbit.Īpparently, they were all fragments of a single giant comet, which had fragmented in the distant past.
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