Unaccountable Freaks

Comet Halley. March 21, 1986.
(photo credit: http://www.phys.ttu.edu/~ozprof/1p321.htm) 

In fiction, momentous things happen under the blaze of a bright and mysterious comet. It portends great things - sometimes terrible, sometimes auspicious, but always big. So allow me a moment of shock when I learned that the most famous comet, Halley's Comet, which arrives every 75 or so years, was in fact blazing (albeit with one of the worst displays in recorded history*) when I entered the world.

Okay, that sounds dramatic.

I know that I am not special, and that the many, many people born between February and April of 1986 are neither intrinsically heroic nor destined for greatness. But it's neat. So there's that.

I am 33 years old and I only learned about this connection yesterday, thanks to John Green and his fantastic podcast Anthropocene Reviewed.



He gives the comet better import than I could (it's the first half of the episode above). I won't riff on it other than to say that his memories of the 1986 visit were compelling enough to lead me down a small internet rabbit hole on the 1986 perihelion and also Mark Twain.

Mark Twain and I have something in common - we were both born under Halley's Comet. His was the 1835 appearance, and his entire life fit into one orbit. He died with Halley once again visible in the sky in 1910. He even predicted it:

“I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" -- Mark Twain, 1909

(more reading on this here: http://www.documentarytube.com/articles/mark-twain-and-the-halley-s-comet-writer-predicting-own-death)

I could make it to Halley's next return. It's a goal worth aiming for. In fact, I have made it almost halfway. If my basic math skills can be trusted: by the time I turn 38, it should be heading back towards us.

Halley, I hope to see you when you're next in the neighborhood. That would really be something.

*"When first seen on each return throughout its long recorded history, Halley's comet has had the same intrinsic brightness though the relative positions of the comet, earth and sun have made some apparitions more spectacular than others. The comet and the earth will be on opposite sides of the sun in February, 1986, making the circumstances of the next appearance the worst in over two thousand years." Abstract of: R. P. Broughton (1979). "The visibility of Halley's comet". Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. 73: 24–36. Bibcode:1979JRASC..73...24B