It had not been seen in 10,000 years and isn’t expected again for 14,000 more. But Jan. 30, 1996, the ball of ice and dirt the size of Chicago revealed itself to an amateur astronomer named Yuji ...

Even though so much of what we see in the night sky is predictable, comets, those icy relics left over from the earliest days of our solar system, still offer lots of uncertainty. Once a new comet is ...

The image of Comet Hale-Bopp blazing across the night sky of 1997 has delighted casual stargazers and astronomers alike. It was first spotted in July 1995 by Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, who observed it ...

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There's an action-packed drama in the heavens this month. Even as you read this, Comet Hyakutake is skimming past the Earth, far closer than any other heavenly body except the Moon, in a celestial ...

Yuji Hyakutake, an amateur Japanese astronomer known for his discovery of a comet in 1996 that was later dubbed Comet Hyakutake, died Wednesday evening, his family said Thursday. He was 51. According ...

KOHOUTEK FELL SO SHORT OF its hype in 1973 that when one astronomer threw a comet party he served flat, booze-free drinks: fake punch, he said, for a fake comet. Halley raised such expectations that ...

Peter Christine was not impressed. But when you are only 4 years old, as the Bethlehem boy is, it takes more than a visitor from the other side of the galaxy to leave one struck with awe. No matter ...

Having witnessed Comet Ikeya-Seki as a child in 1965, Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake was eager to discover a comet himself. And on Dec. 26, 1995, he did so, searching the skies with 25×150 ...

CNN-- Comet Hyakutake, which swept closest to Earth last week, emitted strong X-rays as it passed, according to U.S. and German scientists.Any level of X-rays would have grabbed the interest of ...