Definitions for "HALLEY'S COMET"
Named for the English astronomer, Edmund Halley. One of the most brilliant comets viewed from Earth, it reappears approximately every seventy-seven years.
a COMET named after Edmond Halley, d. 1742, who observed it in 1682 and calculated its orbit round the Sun to be approximately every 76 years: illustrated in the Bayeux Tapestry
Halley's comet is a periodic comet (made of frozen gas and dust), that orbits around the sun. Its earliest-recorded sighting was in 240 B.C. in China, but Edmund Halley was the first person to recognize that it was periodic. It was last seen in 1986 and will be seen next in the year 2061; its period is 76 years. When the Earth passes through Halley's comet's orbit (twice each year), its detritus causes the meteor showers the Eta Aquarids and the Orionids.