Fig. 331.
Fig. 332.
Fig. 333.
Fig. 334.
300. The Comet of 1843.—The great comet of 1843, a view of which is given in Fig. 334, was favorably situated for observation only in southern latitudes. It was exceedingly brilliant, and was easily seen in full daylight, in close proximity to the sun. The apparent length of its tail was sixty-five degrees, and its real length a hundred and fifty million miles, or nearly twice the distance from the earth to the sun. This comet is especially remarkable on account of its near approach to the sun. At the time of its perihelion passage the distance of the comet from the photosphere of the sun was less than one-fourteenth of the diameter of the sun. This distance was only one-half that of the comet of 1680 when at its perihelion. When at perihelion, this comet was plunging through the sun's outer atmosphere at the rate of one million, two hundred and eighty thousand miles an hour. It passed half way round the sun in the space of two hours, and its tail was whirled round through a hundred and eighty degrees in that brief time. As the tail extended almost double the earth's distance from the sun, the end of the tail must have traversed in two hours a space nearly equal to the circumference of the earth's orbit,—a distance which the earth, moving at the rate of about twenty miles a second, is a whole year in passing. It is almost impossible to suppose that the matter forming this tail remained the same throughout this tremendous sweep.
301. Donati's Comet.—The great comet of 1858, known as Donati's comet, was one of the most magnificent of modern times. When at its brightest it was only about fifty million miles from the earth. Its tail was then more than fifty million miles long. Had the comet at this time been directly between the earth and sun, the earth must have passed through its tail; but this did not occur. The orbit of this comet was found to be decidedly elliptic, with a period of about two thousand years. This comet is especially celebrated on account of the careful telescopic observations of its nucleus and coma at the time of its perihelion passage. Attention has already been called (287) to the changes it underwent at that time. Its tail was curved, and of a curious feather-like form, as shown in Fig. 335. At times it developed lateral streamers, as shown in Fig. 336. Fig. 337 shows the head of the comet as it was seen by Bond of the Harvard Observatory, whose delineations of this comet have been justly celebrated.
