feng1

As my father and I observed them from our backyard in rural East Haddam when I was 13, I remember thinking how strange it was that they were speeding through space at thousands of miles an hour, yet seemed frozen in the sky. Their Links of London I Charm was apparent the very next night when they had quite obviously changed position relative to the stars. On Oct. 20, 2010, comet Hartley 2 will come within 11 million miles of Earth. Its orbital period is 6.46 years and this is its fourth fly-by since 1986, when it was the second short-period comet discovered by astronomer Malcolm Hartley in Australia. Short-period comets originate beyond Neptune's orbit in the Kuiper Belt. Studies of Hartley 2's travels show that it only recently settled into its current trajectory after encounters with Jupiter's gravity in 1947, 1971 and 1982. Until thenLinks of London H Charm the comet never came closer to the sun than about 200 million miles and wasn't readily visibleLinks of London Hartley 2 spent September gaining speed in Andromeda and this month blazes across the northern sky to the bright star Capella in the constellation Auriga, the charioteer. By the time you read this, the moon will be waning and the comet will be traveling Links of London G Charm W-shaped Cassiopeia. On the night of Oct. 7, the moon will be new and Hartley 2 should be at magnitude 5 or 6-within naked-eye visibility-as it glides less than 1 degree south of the Double Cluster in Perseus, which is fairly easy to make out with binoculars. Until mid-October, northern hemisphere observers can see the comet nearly all night long in the northeastern sky.