Back in October 1965, another Kreutz sungrazer, Comet Ikeya-Seki, became so brilliant that at its peak it reportedly was 10 times brighter than the full moon and was visible even in the daytime ...

Forty years ago this week, one of the brightest and most spectacular comets ever seen was putting on a memorable show in the morning twilight sky. It came out of nowhere and was described by some ...

When the comet Ikeya-Seki curved around the sun last October, many a stargazer’s camera was focused on its fiery trail. But two California Institute of Technology researchers were deter mined to ...

News of the comet’s appearance was quickly relayed from Tokyo to my office at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Here the name “Comet Ikeya-Seki” was officially assigned, as well as ...

IF PRIZES were offered for cometary distinctions, then last year’s Comet Ikeya-Seki would win a medal as the most photographed of all time, and it might win again for the range of astrophysical ...

A BALLOON-BORNE omnidirectional scintillation detector was aloft over Palestine, Texas (L value about 1.6), during the solar approach of the Ikeya-Seki comet on October 20, 1965. One of the aims ...