On This Day In History: First Recorded Passage Of Halley’s Comet Observed By Chinese Astronomers – On Mar 30, 240 BC

MessageToEagle.com – On 30 March 240 BC, the first recorded passage of Halley’s Comet was observed by Chinese astronomers in the Chinese chronicle ‘Records of the Grand Historian’ (or ‘Shiji’), which describes a comet that appeared in the east and moved north.

It was the first verified record of Halley’s Comet, made in China.

However, comets (‘Huìxing’) have been observed and recorded in China, since the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC). From the Yin period of the Shang Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, comets were observed and recorded more than 360 times. In 635 BC, Chinese astronomers pointed out that the comet tail always pointed away from the sun.

From the Spring and Autumn Period to 1910 at the end of the Qing Dynasty, 31 observations of Halley’s Comet were recorded according to the Beijing Ancient Observatory. Other sources put the number at 30.

However, in 613 BC in the Spring and Autumn Annals (?? Chunqiu) of Confucius, reference was made to a comet. It said: “In July, there was a comet that entered the Big Dipper…” and this may have been a reference to the appearance of Halley’s comet that would have been seen in 620 BC.

Europeans did not record its appearance until much later, but it was Edmond Halley who hypothesized that the comet that astronomers in Europe had recorded over time was actually the same comet returning again and again and predicted that it would return and when.

Halley’s highly elliptical, 75-year orbit carries it out well beyond the orbit of Neptune and well inside the orbits of Earth and Venus when it swings in around the Sun, travelling in the opposite direction from the revolution of the planets.

It was the first comet that was recognized as being periodic.

An Englishman, Edmond Halley predicted in 1705 that the comet that appeared over London in 1682 would reappear again in 1759, and that it was the same comet that appeared in 1607 and 1531.

When the comet reappeared again in 1759, as correctly predicted, it was named (posthumously) after Halley.

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