Word: halley
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Lost along with the spacecraft were a$100-million satellite that was to have become animportant part of NASA's space-based shuttlecommunications network and a smaller $10 millionpayload that was to have studied Halley's comet...
Except for a sudden dash across the sky by Halley's comet--which appears about as often as the Patriots do in the Super Bowl--not much is going to deter 90 million Americans from watching the big game this Sunday...
...five. Looking rather like an oil drum with an upended beach umbrella stuck on top, the 5-ft. by 6-ft. probe was launched from Kourou, French Guiana, last July; as of last week it was 21 million miles from earth and nearly three times as far from Halley's. The little ship and everything on it are built for survival, and with good reason. The dust particles around the nucleus are expected to strike Giotto with such great velocity that a speck weighing a tenth of a gram would penetrate an aluminum plate about 3 in. thick. To prevent...
Indeed, superstition about comets has persisted into the 20th century. As Halley's came into view in 1910, some residents of Chicago prepared themselves for death by cyanogen-gas poisoning when, as it was widely predicted, the earth passed through the comet's tail. As recently as 1970, Vietnamese peasants quaked at the sight of the "Sky Broom," the unexpectedly vivid passage of Bennett's comet...
During the seven months or so that Halley's is visible either through binoculars or to the naked eye, it will appear to move among the constellations. On the day you plan to look for Halley's, find the point on the chart that approximates the chosen date. This spot will help you determine the comet's position relative to familiar groups of stars. But the time of day for observing Halley's and the direction in which to look will vary. This week, for example, observers in the northern hemisphere should search the southwestern sky during the evening...