I went to Wikipedia, and they have a nice animation, but it doesn’t show its entire path. And I can’t figure out what it is orbiting and why it was seen for so long. My sister remembers it being in the sky for weeks (1997), but I don’t remember ever seeing it. I know I was busy, but how could I possibly be THAT busy?
In: Planetary Science
I think you might be underestimating orbital distances, and how SLOW the universe makes really fast moving things seem.
Hale-Bopp is in a long orbit around the sun. Orbital mechanics are crazy. Physics and science and shit. Orbits don’t go in a nice even circle, not even the planets. The Sun’s gravity pulls them in, but can’t quite capture them, so then they sling shot around the other side and go way far out before coming back. So an orbit is not a nice circle, it’s this big oval around the sun.
But the oval doesn’t have the sun in the middle, it has it on one end of the oval. So a comet like Hale-Bopp will come around the sun all fast and furious and glorious, and then head back out on its elliptical orbit, and do its boring thing out in space for many years, before the subtile pull of the sun’s gravity brings it back, and eventually, in 4200 years, the Earth will get to see it again.
Sorry, I know this probably doesn’t answer your question very well. But in short, the solar system is way bigger than you can imagine, 4200 years is an eye blink in the life of the cosmos, orbits aren’t nice circles, and Hale-bopp told me it just needs some space from you, specifically.
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