Talk:Comet Hale–Bopp - Misplaced Pages

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Comet Hale–Bopp is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

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older entries

4200 years or 2300 years before it comes back? --rmhermen

Just to note this is now answered in the article - its period was 4200 years but is now 2380 due to gravitational interaction with Jupiter. Worldtraveller 16:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I assume from reading the article and the above comment that this means its return will be 2380 years from 1997? Article altered accordingly to remove time-sensitive reference. --RobertG ♬ talk 6 July 2005 10:12 (UTC)

Yep, your assumption is correct, although we could probably just say it will return around 4380AD, as I would guess the figure of 2380 years could be considered accurate to ±10 years. Worldtraveller 6 July 2005 11:06 (UTC)

Here's a pic to get hold of - showing the antitail. Kwantus 04:27, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

How do you pronounce it?

Phonetically, following the usual rules of English. Thus, "Hale" is a homophone with the English word "hail" and "Bopp" rhymes with "pop" or "mop" or "stop". Runa27 22:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Heaven's Gate?

Why no mention of or reference to Heaven's Gate? It's a popular factoid related to Hale-Bop... Jake b 05:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Heaven's Gate is mentioned, in fact. See the last sentence of the intro, and the section titled 'paranoia and superstition'. Worldtraveller 07:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, the Heaven's Gate Cult has its own article thanks to its noteriety. ;) Runa27 22:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Lieder and Stuff

Since I've been reverted twice by an anonymous editor, I thought I would explain myself. Nancy Lieder, although she is batshit insane, is a public person of some note, appearing on talk radio, running a website and small organization that is itself the subject of a wikipedia page (ZetaTalk). I am interested in including her hprimarily because she has (and to an extent still does) denied the reality of Hale-Bopp, and this seems noteworthy.

Again, I think it is fairly clear that "Paranoia and Superstition" is not a neutral title for a section of an encyclopedia article. I agree that we are citing examples that I, and 62.249.214.195 and almost everybody else would consider to be both superstitious and paranoid. But the people who hold those beliefs obviously would not agree, so I think it is needlessly POV. Ethan Mitchell 18:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Shot-cocktail

"Hale-Bopp is the name of a Shot-Cocktail, popular in Europe."

This doesn't seem to be very related to the rest of the information in the "legacy" section, or, really, the article as a whole. Thoughts? 70.22.236.70 19:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it does seem to have been named after the comet... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.127.11.233 (talk) 19:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on 14 October 2007

On 14 October 2007, two edits were made from IP 80.72.34.252 in which a portion of the page was deleted. The edit was immediately before additional vandalism in which the whole page was blanked, and a bot was unable to figure out which was the correct edit to use as its restoration. I have restored the page content that had been deleted by the 80.72.34.252 edits. If you believe that this was in error, please discuss it here. -- B.D.Mills (T, C) 04:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting data

Hmmm, strange. I'm certainly no comet master, but I've discovered some conflicting data here. This page says "Semi-major axis: 186 AU" and "Orbital period: 2537 a".

This NASA data page says "Semi-major axis: 250. AU" and "Orbital period: 4000. yrs." (the other data is correlating).

Am I totally off here, or is this page wrong, or the NASA data wrong? Anybody got a clue? Regards, --Dna-Dennis (talk) 13:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, just read Talk:Comet_Hale-Bopp#older_entries; Jupiter seems to have changed the data... I guess it's up to NASA to change theirs? --Dna-Dennis (talk) 14:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The latest and most precise data from NASA: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=C/1995+O1 a = 185.9 a. u., P = 2534 years. — Chesnok (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Why?

Scientists were still cautiously optimistic that it would become very bright. What scientific purpose does the brightness of the comet have? Why did they hope it would get brighter? 04:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Unexplained

Why does the section in question called "Unexplained" when the very section provides an explanation for the alleged companion to the comet - namely a star that Chuck Shramek hadn't realised was one due to wrong settings on his planetarium software? Autarch (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Because it was changed ten months ago by a believer in the nonsense spouted by Shramek , and no-one changed it back. It seems this article is not very well maintained at all: not only has a vandal's heading change been allowed to remain, but the section "Early Progress" was removed 18 months ago and has yet to reappear (which I suppose at least means it's free of vandalism...), and "The comet recedes" also spent four months out of the article before its removal was reverted . Sad. Very sad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.70.122.53 (talk) 21:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Influence on animals

Had the comet some influence on animals, such as whales? Or any animals at all? With influence I mean, did the comet distract some animals? I am especially interested in marine animals regarding my question! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.153.197.123 (talk) 07:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Comets are not my speciality, but I would assume it didn't have any definitive effect — after all it was a bit fainter than Sirius, the brightest star on the sky. Of course it was an extended object unlike stars. Moon does have effect on animals, but full moon is about 10,000 times brighter than Hale-Bopp. Random astronomer (talk) 18:48, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

References: open issues

I still have a couple concerns. Firstly, I have not been able to find the reference for it spanning half the sky "with its two tails, although the longest reaches of the tails were too faint to be visible to the naked eye." My second concern is the whole Legacy section: was it the furthest comet discovered or the furthest comet discovered by amateurs? The largest comet: strictly speaking the reference only lists comets with well-determined sizes. I would assume Comet Sarabat is the largest comet we have some guess estimates, and even that is probably still dwarfed by 95P/Chiron, though whether Chiron is a comet or not is another question. Random astronomer (talk) 20:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The 'spanning half the sky' comment doesn't sound, well, very encyclopaedic (esepcially as it then goes on to say that the full extent of the tials wouldn't actually be visible to the naked eye). The whole passage could probably be reduced just to the comment that if it had been as close as Hyukatake, it would have been exceptionally bright, although even that isn't absolutely necessary to the article.

Sarabat, which in many respects was a very odd object indeed, was almost certainly larger (and probably substantially larger) than Hale-Bopp according to most sources that actually mention it; I think there's just a little uncertainty as to the accuracy of the original observations.Svejk74 (talk) 09:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Pre-perihelic orbit

The article states, under Orbital Changes, "Its greatest distance from the sun (aphelion) will be about 370 AU, reduced from about 525 AU."

Since this comet had never been observed prior to its arrival in the solar system, how can you guess its previous aphelic distance to have been 525 AU? Stefansquintet (talk) 11:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I have provided a second reference for the pre-perturbation orbit. Orbits can be computed backwards just as they can be computed forwards and the trajectory of Hale-Bopp was followed very closely after it was discovered. But you are right, the exact aphelion distance of the previous orbit has some uncertainties.-- Kheider (talk) 13:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Nancy Lieder

Should Nancy Lieder's claims be added to the UFO section? I wouldn't normally suggest this but the Nibiru thing seems to be having a far more lasting impact than anything those Heaven's Gate people did. Serendi ous 13:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed paragraph from Perihelion section

I removed a paragraph about how bright the comet could have been. This seems to me less encyclopaedic information than sensationalism, like in a newspaper story designed to engage readers rather than simply inform. By contrast, a paragraph about how dull and weak the comet could have been had it passed much farther away (like some other referenced comet) would also be unimportant information. This is drive-by editing. I'm probably not going to be back. --Atkinson (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

good work. No worries... `Weaponbb7 (talk) 19:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Heaven's Gate

This article is about the Hale-Bopp comet, not the mass suicide by the comet's passing. Why is the heaven's gate mass suicide mentioned twice, with an emphasis about it found in the first paragraph? I believe the emphasis should be on the comet only and the Heaven's Gate portion kept within the "UFO Claims" or some sort of impact section. Thoughts? Erikeltic 23:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

As there were no objections for more than a month, I have moved this sentence to the legacy section of the article. I believe it improves the flow of the article and removes unnecessary weight on the Heaven's Gate aspect of Hale-Bopp. At this point in the comet's history that factoid seems much more appropriate under legacy than it does in the introduction. I suspect if he still exists when Hale-Bopp returns, man will not be thinking about the Heaven's Gate cult. Erikeltic 18:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The lead is meant to summarise what is in the article; the Heaven's Gate suicide was a very notable result of the comet's apparition. Serendi ous 21:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

It belongs in legacy. The article is about the comet, not the people that killed themselves because of it. That is much more appropriate in the place I put it and this was up for discussion for more than a month without comment. Erikeltic 13:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

So? We're discussing it now. Heaven's Gate is mentioned already under "UFO claims" and there's no point in mentioning the same fact twice in two adjacent paragraphs- ergo that is NOT a good place to put it. It is a notable and historic fact about the apparaition, so it belongs in the lead, since the lead is meant to summarise the facts listed in the article. Serendi ous 14:04, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

You had ample time to object and said nothing. Now it appears you are going to just keep reverting it to your way. I urge you to reconsider violating 3RR. The content remains the same and the only issue at debate is its placement. I suggest we include some of the other editors that have contributed to this article and ask them before this escalates. Fair enough? In the mean time, I ask that you leave it as I have edited it. Again, you had nearly two months to object and discuss this issue. If you would like to discuss it now, that's fine--but the article should remain as I have it until we have reached consensus. Erikeltic 14:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, when it was put in the lead, I thought, yes, that seems appropriate. Rothorpe (talk) 15:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Move?

It has been proposed in this section that Comet Hale–Bopp be renamed and moved to Comet Hale-Bopp.

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Comet Hale–Bopp → Comet Hale-Bopp –

According to a check of google books, which shows 10 of the first 10 results use a hyphen. Also per MOS:HYPHEN (proper nouns use a hyphen). Apteva (talk) 20:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Obviously, since this example is cited in MOS:DASH, changing it would be controversial. Dicklyon (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
- and the correction to the MOS has been noted. But no it is not obvious that this is controversial, it is actually obvious that it is non-controversial and that the the MOS needs to be corrected. Hopefully since this is an FA it will be on someone's watchlist. Apteva (talk) 22:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose – Many books and papers use the same style as that suggested by WP:MOS, and use the en dash; there is no doubt that it is a style choice, and not an unusual one (I only had to go as far as the seonc book hit in Google Book Search to find this one; and further down the first page (with previews) this one; so Apteva lies, or is blind, or refuses to recognize the existence of en dashes; see also articles, such as , ). I finally see where Apteva has hallucinated the idea that "proper nouns use a hyphen", in the clause that says "in proper names such as Trois-Rivières and Wilkes-Barre." This certainly was never intended to say that all proper names, or connections of proper names, should be punctuated with hyphen. This is explained better at MOS:DASH, where hyphenated and dashed conjuctions are compared, e.g. where it says "An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name: Lennard-Jones potential with a hyphen: named after John Lennard-Jones. An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in a compound: the Seifert–van Kampen theorem". Hale–Bopp Comet, named for Hale and Bopp, is like the latter; there is no Mr. Hale-Bopp involved here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

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