Word: comets
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...history of the structure dates back to 1835 when the University purchased it from Richard Henry Dana, father of the noted author, and spurred by interest in Halley's comet, converted the structure into an observatory...
Station Born of Comet...
...start at the University in 1839, when William C. Bond, later to become first director of the Observatory, organized a star-gazers' club, meeting bi-monthly in Dana House. Interest, however, waned, and the club was on the point of dissolution when, in March, 1843, a brilliant comet saved the day for astronomy at Harvard...
Streaking across the afternoon sky, this comet brought astronomers from all corners of the nation to Cambridge, where, it was rumored, existed an observation station. Disappointment was great upon discovery of University astronomers peering skyward with hand-shielded but naked eye, just as the visitors had already done...
This year, the comet was due again, and astronomers calculated that this time the earth would pass only 131,000 miles from the place it had been eight days before. As astronomers measure distances, this is a cat's-whisker miss. The earth's gravitational pull would capture thousands, perhaps millions, of meteors: small bits of straggling comet stuff. When they plunged into the atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour and turned into incandescent gas, the show would be the best since...