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Bits of Halley's Comet will streak into the Earth's atmosphere before dawn on Sunday during the peak of the eta Aquarid meteor shower. Although moonlight will make all but the brightest meteors impossible to see, those that are visible may be quite spectacular due to the geometry of the shower. Halley's Comet last swung by the Earth in 1986 and now lies in the outer solar system. But every time it passes near the Sun on its 76-year orbit, the nucleus of the icy object sheds about 6 metres of material, which spreads out along the comet's orbit. Twice a...

Corkscrew Meteor Mystery While photographing the recently discovered comet Machholz the other night, Jimmy Westlake's mind wandered back to a mystery that'd been bugging him for years. On Jan. 1, 1986, he was photographing another comet, Halley's, through his homemade 8-inch reflecting telescope. "About one minute into the exposure, I watched a meteor zip through the field of the telescope," said Westlake, a professor of physical sciences at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, CO. "I stopped the exposure at two minutes." That night, when he developed the roll of slide film, he was astounded at what he saw: "Crossing...

Halley's comet portrayed on ancient coin Heather Catchpole ABC Science Online Wednesday, 19 May 2004 Could the star shape on the king's crown be Halley's comet? A rare ancient coin may feature an early record of Halley's comet, researchers say. The coin features the head of the Armenian king Tigranes II the Great, who reigned from 95 to 55 BC. A symbol on his crown that features a star with a curved tail may represent the passage of Halley's comet in 87 BC, say the Armenian and Italian researchers. Their research will be published in Astronomy & Geophysics, a journal...