Halley's Comet periodicity and predicted return
Periodicidad del cometa Halley y su predicción
- Date
- 1705 (retorno 1758) · confidence high
- Place
- Oxford, England
- Credited to
- Edmond Halley (return observed by Johann Georg Palitzsch)
- People
- 👤 Edmond Halley1656–1742
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Halley identified the comets of 1531, 1607 and 1682 as the same object and predicted its return in 1758. Its punctual return was the great public triumph of Newtonian mechanics.
Palitzsch, a farmer and amateur astronomer, recovered it near Dresden on 25 December 1758.
What it led to
- Universal acceptance of Newtonian gravitation
- Comets as members of the solar system
- Calculation of perturbations (Clairaut)