Word: kohoutek
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...during a search for the remnants of Biela's comet that Luboš Kohoutek made his great discovery. Interested in the minor bodies of the solar system since boyhood meteor-and comet-hunting expeditions in the Czechoslovak mountains, he had in the fall of 1971 located a cluster of about 50 small asteroids in an orbit roughly comparable to that of Biela's comet. Last February, using Hamburg Observatory's 32-in. Schmidt telescope, he tried to "recapture" the asteroids, which he feels may be the remaining chunks of the lost comet. To Kohoutek's surprise...
...found each year, often by diligent amateur stargazers like Kaoru Ikeya, a worker in a Japanese piano factory. Ikeya has been finding new comets at the rate of about one a year since he and another Japanese amateur, Tsutomo Seki, independently discovered the major Ikeya-Seki comet in 1965. Kohoutek, too, had previously discovered a comet in 1969. But it was the second of his 1973 discoveries -officially called Comet Kohoutek 1973f (the ∫ indicating that it was the sixth new comet sighted this year)-that quickly created worldwide excitement...
Dirty Coat. As is customary, Kohoutek immediately sent word of the sightings to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. Under the direction of Astronomer Brian Marsden, the bureau acts as a world clearinghouse for news of astronomical discoveries. It soon became evident to Marsden that the second comet was no ordinary visitor from distant space. After making some rush observations of his own ("We spent a very tense weekend out at Harvard Observatory's Agassiz Station"), he reported that the comet Kohoutek had been sighted at a distance of roughly...
...early discovery meant that Kohoutek was not only intrinsically brighter than Halley's comet but probably quite large. Astronomer Elizabeth Roemer, of the University of Arizona, estimates that Kohoutek's nucleus is about 25 miles in diameter, far larger than most comets, probably including Halley's. Other astronomers calculate that Kohoutek weighs about 1 trillion tons. But size is not Kohoutek's only distinction. It will pass within 13 million miles of the sun. That close flyby, well within the orbit of Mercury, should make for a dazzling interaction between sun and comet. Perhaps most important...
...Because Kohoutek was spotted much earlier than most new comets, astronomers have had an exceptionally long lead time to prepare for a thorough examination. They are taking full advantage of the opportunity. In addition to the conventional telescopes of every size and variety that will be following the comet, NASA'S big radio telescope in the Mojave Desert will be aimed at Kohoutek in an attempt to bounce radar signals off the comet's nucleus (those echoes may tell scientists more about the size and character of the nucleus). M.I.T.'s Haystack Radio Observatory will...