British astronomer Edmund Halley was the first to calculate the orbit of a comet and discover the periodicity of these celestial bodies . Specifically, Halley claimed that a comet observed in 1531 by Appian and Fracastoro was the same one that was described in 1607 by Kepler and Longomontanus, and also the one that he himself had personally observed in his 1682 appearance. "I can confidently predict that it will return in 1758, " he predicted. That comet was christened "Halley" in his honor and, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Cosmology , everything indicates that the first sighting in history occurred in Greece in 466 BC , between the beginning of June. and end of August. The next sighting was recorded by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC Since then, the comet has reappeared 29 times.
The average length of the year for Halley's Comet – understanding the comet's year as the time it takes to make one revolution around the Sun – is 75-76 Earth years . The last time the comet visited us was in 1986 , when the European space probe Giotto approached to take a look at its icy core. And it won't pass close to Earth again until 2062 .
