Throughout history, comet sightings have been considered symbols of change, destruction and hope. Even now, when we know comets are snowballs of dust, rock particles and gases rather than an instruction from the heavens, comet sightings still inspire awe and wonder.
You can see this special place comets have in our imagination in the many artistic and cultural representations of comets made over the centuries.
Read on to explore how sightings of Halley’s Comet in particular have influenced moments of great change—and maybe even altered the course of history.
The science of Halley's Comet
The most sighted comet—and possibly the most influential to human history—is 1P/Halley, also known as simply ‘Halley’s Comet’. 1P/Halley is a ‘periodic’ comet, which means it orbits the Sun and returns to the inner solar system over a regular period of time. It moves in the opposite direction to earth.
Thanks to Edmond Halley’s ‘Synopsis Astronomia Cometicae’, a theory published in 1705, we are able to accurately trace 1P/Halley’s history to determine when the comet was (and will be) seen from Earth. It takes 75–76 years for Halley to orbit the Sun and return to the vicinity of Earth, at which point it can be seen by the naked eye.
Halley's Comet: An omen?
It’s thought the earliest documented sighting of 1P/Halley was in Ancient Greece in 466 BCE. Halley is also documented in ancient China, in Shiji—a colossal history of China completed in about 94 BCE—where it’s noted:
In the seventh year (240 BCE), a comet initially appeared in the east, then in the north, and finally in the west, during the fifth month of the year.
We don’t know whether these Ancient Greek and Chinese sightings inspired radical change in either society. But it’s thought that Halley’s Comet has been repeatedly deemed an omen of good and bad fortune, and consequently influenced rulers, emperors and kings to make monumental decisions.
In the year 451, Halley’s comet was thought to predict the outcome of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and the defeat of Attila the Hun. In 837, the appearance of 1P/Halley made Holy Roman Emperor Louis think his demise was imminent (leading him to fast, pray and make good deeds). And in 1222, Khan Temüjin (known in the West as Genghis Khan) took the comet’s westerly trajectory as a sign to move his conquest west. He died a few years later, but his descendants continued to expand the vast Mongol Empire into eastern Europe, taking parts of Russia, Poland and Hungary.
1P/Halley in art and visual culture
With its glowing aura and tail—caused by the sun warming gases—a comet can be both a beautiful and auspicious sight. Through history, artists have chronicled moments of change inspired by Halley’s comet, in turn reinforcing the significance of these moments.
In 87 BCE, the sighting of 1P/Halley was taken as a sign by the Armenian King Tigranes to consolidate his power. He went on to expand the Armenian kingdom, entering into battles against the Romans, becoming known as Tigranes the Great, King of Kings.
Thought to be the earliest artistic depictions of 1P/Halley, several coins show Tigranes wearing a crown consisting of a star with an elongated, curved tail. This portrait is commemorative, linking Tigranes’ successes with the auspicious comet. The coin would have also acted as an ancient form of mass communication, to reinforce and spread the word about Tigranes’ powerful status.
1P/Halley was back in 1066, coinciding with the Battle of Hastings. For King Harold II it was a bad omen, but for William the Conqueror, it was a sign from heaven of his upcoming victory. The Bayeux Tapestry chronicles the comet’s appearance and its unfavourable impact on King Harold II and his people in scenes 32 and 33—all are seen to cower in fear at its passing.
Florentine painter Giotto di Bondone could have sighted Halley in 1301, and it’s thought the comet inspired the auspicious star of Bethlehem in his Scrovegni Chapel fresco. In the fresco, a bright comet-like star with a long tail can be seen in the night sky, there to lead the three Magi to Jesus’ place of birth.
There’s also a synergy with the actual biblical star of Bethlehem—1P/Halley was visible from earth just 11 years before the purported birth of Jesus. While it’s thought the three Kings weren’t using a comet to guide them—as its position would change with Earth’s rotation and so wouldn’t have led them in a single direction—there is still debate about the astronomical explanation for the star of Bethlehem.
Whatever the explanation, it seems Giotto perceived his sighting of Halley’s Comet as so profoundly hopeful that he thought it biblical, and his fresco is considered to have revolutionised mural painting for the following century.
Chronicling comet history
A sighting of Halley’s Comet in 684–693 is recorded much later in an important ‘incunable’—a book or pamphlet from the earliest period of printing in Europe, before 1500.
The incunable in question is the Nuremberg Chronicle. First published in 1493, it was an illustrated encyclopaedia recounting numerous German and global topics, from human history and mythology to science.
The comet is illustrated as a star with a long tail, and the entry records that: ‘A hairy star, which the Greeks call Comet, portended complete and such calamity because it appeared for three continuous months’. The chronicle was a hugely important document, combining illustrations and text for one of the first times. It influenced the way information on history would be documented for hundreds of years, so it’s notable that it includes an account of 1P/Halley.
Halley’s Comet: from bad omen to beautiful ornament
The Nuremberg Chronicle appears to put some distance between how people in 1493 felt about comets compared to the Greeks in 684. But the idea that comets were a sign of apocalypse would continue to resurface over the centuries.
In 1830s America and Europe there were several sightings of comets, including of Halley’s in 1835, as well as predictions a comet would soon hit earth—Biela’s comet, for example, was miscalculated as being on collision course in 1832. These events coincided with the rise of Millerism—a religious sect led by William Miller, who believed that Christ would return to earth in the early 1840s—and proclamations that the end of the world would occur in 1843. 1P/Halley’s arrival would have been seen by some as a sure sign that the end times were approaching.
This contemporary comet anxiety was again captured by the artist’s eye—and the writer’s pen. Just three years after Halley’s passing, Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) depicts two people in the afterworld, discussing the end of the world as caused by a comet:
I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you [Eiros] among us [in Aidenn].
Edgar Allen Poe, Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1893)
The story would have stoked the fears of people at the time, but it’s also a social commentary on the general public’s mixed belief in and distrust of scientists.
In contrast, in Britain, Halley’s 1835 appearance was remediated as a symbol of satire. ‘Remediation’ is the process by which an idea, object or person is reconsidered as something different, often in opposition to how it was originally thought of. So in the case of Halley’s comet, it went from bad omen—something scary—to something funny. In this example, Halley’s Comet became a symbol in sketches regarding discussions of Irish independence. This artwork appears to emulate the Bayeux Tapestry, showing Halley as a bad omen for England, but with a humorous twist—the heads.
Elsewhere, Halley’s likeness was being made into expensive jewellery—reducing all emotional responses to 1P/Halley to aesthetics, suggesting a lessening of the fear and worry surrounding its presence near Earth.
Halley's Comet in photography
The first photograph of Halley’s comet was taken in 1910 by EE Barnard in Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, USA. Even though Barnard’s images were the first, Barnard himself was quick to dismiss any awe surrounding the image in his paper ‘Visual Observations of Halley's Comet’:
While it lacked much in interest as seen with the naked eye of the sensitive plate, to the human eye it left a lasting impression.
EE Barnard, 'Visual Observations of Halley's Comet' (1910)
Regardless, Barnard also noted that people in the USA and around the world were full of anxiety before the 1910 sighting, stuffing their keyholes to prevent comet gases entering their homes or taking anti-comet pills. So perhaps it was this capturing of the comet in a photograph, showing it to be in some ways unremarkable, that became a final turning point in the fear surrounding Halley. Unlike previous recordings of the comet in the arts, in a photo there was no room for extrapolation or exaggeration, which would have compounded the fear surrounding Halley in the time between sightings.
Some of the most recent depictions of Halley’s comet are the photographs taken by the spacecraft Giotto (named for Giotto di Bondone) in 1986. It was a mission by the European Space Agency, using a spacecraft made by British Aerospace. The photographs taken of the comet were emblematic of this historical moment—Europe’s first quest into deep space. For scientists, the images captured on Giotto's mission were groundbreaking—the first of a comet nucleus. This commemorative poster for the mission captures its importance for space science.
In response to the hype about Halley’s return and Giotto’s mission, a commemorative plate was produced by Wedgwood England. The design includes alternating images of the artworks we’ve looked at, like Giotto’s fresco and the Bayeux Tapestry. It also includes depictions of the anticipated destruction and plague caused by a comet collision (not necessarily Halley) from the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. These fear-inducing images sit alongside diagrams of Giotto spacecraft’s interception with Halley and the composition of a comet.
These historical images juxtaposed with contemporary images of science, surrounding astronomer royal Dr Edmond Halley, present the message that Giotto’s mission will change the way comet sightings have influenced human history—there’s no need to fear comets now that they can be explained scientifically.
However, the sighting of Halley in 1986 did in fact bring huge historical changes. The photographs taken by Giotto were not received well politically. Ahead of launch, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been hugely supportive of the Giotto enterprise. It was an auspicious moment for the UK, leading space exploration.
But Thatcher deemed the resulting images of 1P/Halley visually insufficient (somewhat like Barnard in 1910), unimpressive and, ultimately, a waste of money. Thatcher’s disenchantment led to a change in the UK’s stance on space exploration—a move away from positioning the UK as a leader and a consequential reduction in budget for space research. Even in a modern scientific era, images of Halley’s Comet can be charged with social and political meaning.
The next sighting of Halley’s Comet is due in 2062. Will we see it as an omen of change or a symbol of advancing space science?
Find out more
Online
- NASA Science, 1P/Halley In Depth
- NASA History, Halley’s Comet and the Battle of Hastings
- The Conversation, Halley’s Comet, Covid-19 and the history of ‘miracle’ anti-comet remedies
