Abstract
The sky above Quebec’s Jarnac Pond was inky, the night silent except for the occasional croak of a frog and the hoot of an owl. I could see more stars than I could count, and the Milky Way arched right overhead. I was 14, and for the past 2 years I’d been increasingly drawn to astronomy. “You are going to sit on the dock all night long? Until dawn?” My astonished grandparents couldn’t believe my plan. On that lazy afternoon of August 12, we were watching clouds pass by and talking about the very bright meteor we had seen the previous evening. I had read in a book how, each August 12, the Earth’s orbit intersects the orbit of a comet called Swift-Tuttle, and over a very long time, dust from that comet had spread all along the orbit, resulting in the Perseid meteor shower.
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References
G. W. Hough, “Observations of Comet II. 1862, made with the Olcott Meridian Circle, at the Dudley Observatory,” Astronomische Nachrichten 59, no. 1394 (1863), col. 29.
Ibid. See also S. K. Vsekhsvyatskii, Physical Characteristics of Comets (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1964), 215; Illustrated London News, Aug. 16, 1862, 179.
H. P. Tuttle, “Schreiben des Herrn Tuttle an den Herausgeber,” Astronomische Nachrichten 59, no. 1404 (1863), cols. 187–90.
Many of the interesting details about Horace Turtle’s life come from an unpublished study circa 1980 “H. P. Tuttle: Cometseeker,” by Richard E. Schmidt, US Naval Observatory.
The basis for this story comes from an unpublished memoir (Ref. 4).
W. T. Lynn, “Comet III. 1862,” the Observatory 25 (1902), 304–305. The author notes that the Astronomische Nachrichten, the journal of record at the time, called it Comet II. 1862 but that it was the third comet to reach perihelion that year and is correctly III. 1862 (or in today’s parlance, 1862 III).
B. G. Marsden, “The Next Return of the Comet of the Perseid Meteors,” Astronomical Journal, 78, 656 (1973).
B. G. Marsden, Astronomical Journal 78, 654–662 (1973); see also IAU Circulars 5330 (August 28, 1991) and 5586 (August 14, 1992).
IAU Circular 5330 (August 28, 1991).
B. G. Marsden, personal communication, Oct. 18, 1992.
B. G. Marsden, “Comet Swift-Tuttle: Does It Threaten Earth?” Sky and Telescope 85, 1 (1993), 11.
IAU Circular 5620, Sept. 27, 1992.
B. G. Marsden, personal communication, Oct. 18, 1992.
B. G. Marsden, Astronomical Journal 78, 658 (1973).
B. G. Marsden, personal communication, Oct. 12, 1992. See also Time Magazine, Nov. 9, 1992, 27.
B. G. Marsden, personal communication, Oct. 31, 1992.
B. Marsden, interview, 7 January 1993.
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© 1994 David H. Levy
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Levy, D.H. (1994). The Terrible Swift Sword Pleasures and Perils of a Comet. In: The Quest for Comets. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5998-0_1
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