Message-Id: <v01540b0caf58ec0bb83c@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 17:53:57 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Re: HELP!!!
>Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 17:52:41 -0800
>To:Sthammack@aol.com
>From:pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
>Subject:Re: HELP!!!
>
Steve
> The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a good source, provided
>this information to the press:
>
>The latest orbital calculations (late 1996) indicate
> that comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) last passed through the inner
>solar system about 4210
> years ago (or around 2214 BC), and that it will return again in
>about 2380 years from now
> (or around 4377 AD) -- its orbital period being greatly shortened
>at its current "apparition"
> due to gravitational perturbations by the major planets.
>
>
>However press reports often did not mention the last sentence which gives
>the reason for why the period of the comet changes each time it approaches
>the inner solar system.
>
>
>Paul Doherty
>
>