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When did Halley's Comet first appear?

Records of the appearance of Halley's comet date back to 239 B.C. (A comet is a celestial body that consists of a fuzzy head surrounding a bright nucleus, or core. A comet follows an unpredictable orbit, or path; when it moves near the Sun it develops a long tail that points away from the Sun.) Nevertheless, it had not been identified until Edmund Halley (1656–1742), a British astronomer (scientist specializing in the study of matter in outer space), noticed that the comet he saw in 1682 followed roughly the same path as comets observed in 1531 and 1607. At this point he suggested that it was the same comet in all three instances, and he predicted its next appearance would be in 1758. When it did appear that year—sixteen years after the astronomer's death—the comet was named after Halley.

While the comet was observed each time it had appeared since 239 B.C., it had...

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