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Hale-Bopp passed over Sumer
It was a ball of ice and dust about 200 million kilometers from Earth when it appeared, four years into the reign of King Shar-Kali-Sharri, great-grandson of Sargon of Akkad. Over the next four thousand years it swung through the solar system in a deep elliptical orbit, until it passed Earth again as a line of glowing light in 1997. It was the brightest comet with the longest tail ever observed in our night sky, and it stayed visible to the naked eye for 18 months.
Some in Sumer and Akkad may have looked up and seen the gods smiling on their lands. Others may have taken it for a sign of doom. During the same reign, the climate changed suddenly, rainfall dropped, and the famine began.
Why will Hale-Bopp take so long to return?
The comet follows a long, stretched-out orbit that carries it far beyond the planets. A close pass by Jupiter in 1996 changed its path and shortened its orbit. Astronomers' calculations now put its period at about 2,500 years, with the next return around the year 4385.
How was Hale-Bopp discovered?
Alan Hale in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Arizona found it independently on the night of July 22, 1995. It was far out beyond Jupiter's orbit, much farther away than comets are usually spotted. Both men were amateur observers.
How big is Hale-Bopp's nucleus?
Estimates put the nucleus at 40 to 60 kilometers across. That is several times wider than the roughly 11-kilometer nucleus of Halley's comet. A comet's nucleus is a solid core of ice, rock, and dust, and its size sets how much gas and dust it releases near the Sun.
Why do comets grow tails?
Sunlight heats the ice in a comet's nucleus until it turns to gas, which carries dust out into a cloud called the coma. Sunlight pushes the dust into a broad curved tail. The solar wind drags charged gas into a second, straighter tail. Hale-Bopp showed both, and astronomers also detected a faint sodium tail.