Apr 1 1997
From The Space Library
The famed Comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to the Sun, accelerating the comet's process of shedding the gargantuan ice shards that, scientists hypothesized, might contain the basic ingredients necessary for life to begin. Based on data gathered by researchers during the 20 months between the discovery of the comet and its approach to the Sun, scientists theorized that the outer layers of Comet Hale-Bopp probably contained methanol, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, and other carbon compounds. Because of its proximity to the Sun, many telescopes, most significantly the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), had to stop tracking the 25-mile-wide (40-kilometer-wide) comet to avoid damage to their sensitive instruments. The approach of the comet was a scientific opportunity occurring once "every 200 years or so," according to Brian G. Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Comet sightings thrilled amateur and professional astronomers alike, as well as causing some paranoia. In one tragically irrational response to its approach, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate religious community committed suicide, under the delusion that they were about to catch a ride on a spaceship hidden behind the comet's tail.
NASA announced that the newly refurbished and improved HST had allowed astronomers to observe the fading, visible-light counterpart of a gamma-ray burst (GRB), a process that researchers called "one of the most energetic and mysterious" in the universe. The scientists speculated that the observable counterpart signified the existence of an unobservable, catastrophic burst of gamma rays, unleashing as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun does in 10 billion years. The New Technology Telescope and the W. M. Keck Telescope, added to the HST in 1997, had enabled scientists to make the observation. According to Gerald J. Fishman of Marshall Space Flight Center, the lead investigator of NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, astronomers could not overestimate the significance of the fmd, even if the visible-light phenomenon was only an indicator of another unobservable phenomenon. "This [discovery] opens up a whole new era in GRB research," Fishman explained. "We now know that it is possible to see the fading optical emission by rapid follow-up observations with powerful telescopes. With several more of these, we should be able to narrow the models of what could be causing these gigantic outbursts."
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