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It is said (in Wikipedia, so you know it's true) that Mark Twain
was born in 1835 exactly two weeks after the perihelion of
Halley's Comet, and died the day after its perihelion in 1910. In
his biography Twain said, "The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now
here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together,
they must go out together.'"
I happen to be one of that lucky generation that may, if my
predilection for fine steaks does not kill me first, get to see
Halley's Comet twice. I saw it in 1986, when I was nine (through
a narrow telescope, at 3am, but I did see it), and it is
eminently possible that I may live to see it again in 2061. By
then I will be nearly eighty-five years old; however, if modern
science is to be believed, this is only the briefest flicker in
the 4.6 billion years of life of the Oort cloud that the comet is
thought to hail from. I will grow old and die, as will the
generations that follow, but the comet will return again and then
again until finally we are all but shadows of ghostly dust.
Copyright 2009 Cameron Kaiser except noted. All rights reserved. |
