Unraveling the connection between Halley’s Comet and the birth and death of Mark Twain

Claim:

American author Mark Twain was born and died on the days Halley’s Comet passed Earth.

Judgement:

What is true:

Halley’s perihelion, the comet’s closest approach to the Sun, occurred in 1835 and 1910, the years of Twain’s birth and death.

What is not true:

The comet was not at its closest point to Earth on the days Twain was born and died.

A “called”strange but perfect ending‘, the death of American writer Mark Twain had the same adventurous storyline as some of his most beloved and classic stories. The author of ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ famously said: “I came in with Halley’s Comet… and I expect to go for the wire with it.”

Details about the death of the literary icon are known shared about social mediaoften pointing to the coincidence of Twain’s birth and death with the passing of the periodic comet, like this after shared with X (formerly Twitter) on February 22, 2024:

Halley’s perihelion—the closest approach to the sun—occurred in 1835 and 1910, the years of Twain’s birth and death. But the comet was not at its closest point to Earth on the days Twain was born and died, as implied by the claim that the comet “flew” past the planet on those dates. For this reason, we have rated this claim as a ‘mixture’.

Snopes spoke with NASA’s chief historian Brian Odomwhich referred our newsroom to an October 14, 2021 article titled “955 years ago: Halley’s Comet and the Battle of Hastings.” In it, John Uri of the Johnson Space Center wrote:

The story continues

According to The Mark Twain House and Museumthe American author, whose given name was Samuel Clemens, was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He died on April 21, 1910 at the age of 74. The museum took notice that Twain “was born and died in the years in which Halley’s Comet passed the Earth” – not the dates when he was closest.

Halley reported his perihelion November 16, 1835and data published by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows that the comet’s next perihelion is at April 20, 1910 – the day before Twain died.

Because comets are subject to the laws of physics, it can take days, weeks or even longer for them to pass by Earth. News reports from 1910 suggest that Halley’s Comet was most visible in the US between May 18 and 20, although Wired reported that the comet was at its brightest from May 14 to 22. That Halley was so visible during this time frame suggests that the comet was closest. point to the earth, also called perigee. Anyway, this happened about a month after Twain died.

Halley’s 1910 passage was especially newsworthy because “newspaper predictions about the impact of Halley’s Comet led to public fear and mass hysteria,” the Library of Congress wrote. Before the comet arrived, some scientists reportedly said that cyan gas in its tail could end all life on Earth, sparking public concern about the “end of the world.”

It should come as no surprise that Halley’s performance impressed Twain, along with the author credited as he said not long before his death:

Officially known as 1P/Halley, the periodic comet moves backward toward Earth, or retrograde, around the sun. On average, this orbit lasts about 75 years, although the period varies due to the gravitational effects of the surrounding planets. Halley’s passage is measured from one perihelion passage, the shortest distance to the Sun, to the next, with a shortest orbit of 74.42 years, between 1835 and 1910, according to NASA.

Discovered in 1705 by Edmond Halley and described in his “Synopsis Astronomia Cometicae,“Halley was the first comet scientifically proven to return to Earth. Since then, the comet has been associated with ancient observations for more than two millennia, including its feature on the famous Bayeux Tapestry that depicted the 1066 Battle of Hastings between the Norman-French and English armies.

(Public domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Referred to by NASA as “cosmic snowballs“Comets are made of dust, rock and ice that degrade over time. On each orbit around the Sun, Halley, which is about 15 by 8 kilometers in diameter, is estimated to be between 9.5 and 3 meters Halley is in will continue to orbit the Sun for at least 16,000 years and – since the average periodic comet makes about 1,000 orbits around the Sun – will be visible for another 60,000 years, plus or minus a few.

Halley is the only comet visible to the naked eye that can be seen twice in a lifetime NASA. Upon returning to the inner solar system, Halley sprays ice and rocks into space, resulting in two annual meteor showers: the Eta Aquarids in May and the Orionids in October.

Halley’s Comet as it looked in 1910, photographed in Arequipa, Peru. (Public domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Sources:

1P/Halley – NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/1p-halley/. Accessed February 28, 2024.

955 Years Ago: Halley’s Comet and the Battle of Hastings – NASA. October 14, 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/history/955-years-ago-halleys-comet-and-the-battle-of-hastings/.

1909Obs….32..175L Page 175. https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1909Obs….32..175L#:~:text=1835)%20was%20first%20detected%20by,(1773)%20at%20176%20Gorrespondence. Accessed February 28, 2024.

Biography – Mark Twain House. June 5, 2017, https://marktwainhouse.org/about/mark-twain/biography/, https://marktwainhouse.org/about/mark-twain/biography/.

Comets – NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/. Accessed February 28, 2024.

Great comets in history. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sb/great_comets.html. Accessed February 28, 2024.

Halley, Edmond. A summary of the astronomy of comets. 1705, https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/synopsisofastron00hall.

“https://Twitter.Com/Hollow_maven/Status/1760766068149096549.” X (formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/hollow_maven/status/1760766068149096549. Accessed February 28, 2024.

“https://Twitter.Com/Rainmaker1973/Status/1760641993233818058.” X (formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1760641993233818058. Accessed February 28, 2024.

“Is it true that Mark Twain was both born and died on the same day that Halley’s Comet passed over Earth?” Quora, https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Mark-Twain-was-both-born-and-died-on-the-same-day-that-Halleys-comet-passed-Earth . Accessed February 28, 2024.

“Mark Twain’s Strange But Perfect Ending.” PBS News HourApril 21, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/mark-twains-weird-but-perfect-ending.

NASA History Bureau – NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-office/. Accessed February 28, 2024.

Pop culture influence – Mark Twain House. June 5, 2017, https://marktwainhouse.org/about/mark-twain/pop-culture-influence/, https://marktwainhouse.org/about/mark-twain/pop-culture-influence/.