Word: tailed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Kohoutek- pronounced Loo-bosh Ko-hoe-tek); it promises to rival and perhaps surpass in brightness Halley's comet, which last appeared in 1910 and will not be seen again until 1986. By the time Kohoutek emerges from its passage behind the sun early in January, its tail should be full grown, a glittering streamer extending across as much as a sixth of the evening sky. There is some chance that Kohoutek will not live up to all its billing - comets are notoriously unpredictable. Some split into several parts as they approach the sun; others disintegrate completely or simply...
That prophecy, written by the Roman philosopher and statesman nearly 2,000 years ago, may soon be fulfilled. Growing brighter every morning in the predawn sky, one of the largest comets ever seen by man, its elongating tail stretching across millions of miles of space, is streaking toward a Christmas rendezvous with the sun. Later this month and through most of January, the giant comet should provide an extraordinary celestial spectacle, and may well help answer the questions that Seneca raised so long...
...Freaks. Cometphobia took another form during Halley's reappearance in 1910. Fearing that mankind would be poisoned as the earth passed through noxious gases in the comet's tail, many people bought gas masks and "comet pills" to prevent asphyxiation; they also staged a round of end-of-the-world parties. But the gases were far too tenuous to do any damage, and the earth remained unscathed. One famous prediction, however, did come to pass. Mark Twain, who had been born during the comet's previous visitation in 1835, and wrote that he expected to die during...
Perhaps the most famous comet tale was written by Futurist H.G. Wells. In his 1906 novel In the Days of the Comet, the earth was enveloped in a mysterious green gas from a comet's tail just as war broke out between England and France. The vapors had so beneficent an effect that the combatants fell asleep for three hours, awoke to a world without war and began building a Utopia of socialism and love. In contrast, there is the bleak view of Psychologist turned Amateur Geophysicist Immanuel Velikovsky. In his bestselling 1950 book Worlds in Collision-which...
Devil By The Tail, 8:15; weekend...