Sky and Telescope - December 2016 - 34

Haunted Eyes to the Cosmos

COURTESY POE HOUSE BALTIMORE, INC. (2)

The other comet of short period which has lately been discovered is that of Biela . . . Its orbit, by a remarkable coincidence,
very nearly intersects that of the earth; and had the latter, at
the time of its passage in 1832, been a month in advance of
its actual place, it would have passed through the comet - a
singular rencontre, perhaps not unattended with danger.

LOOKING DEEP This small refractor, reputed to be the instrument Poe used to study the heavens as a teen, is displayed at the
Poe House museum in Baltimore. The telescope and its pillarand-claw stand were made by the London ﬁrm of Thomas Blunt
and brought back from England by Poe's foster father, John Allan.

Heinrich Olbers, the astronomer most associated
today with "Olbers' paradox," remarked about Biela's
Comet in The American Journal of Science: "at some time
the comet may pass at a very small distance from us,
and even so near, that its atmosphere may be in contact
with our globe. " Joseph Johann von Littrow, writing in
the same journal during 1833, pointed out: "Of all the
comets which are known to astronomers, that of Biela is
the only one whose orbit is such as to admit of its ever
coming in contact with the Earth. This is a circumstance
which renders that body an object of deep and peculiar
interest to the inhabitants of our globe."
Poe could conceivably have seen these notes in a
scientiﬁc journal. But to ﬁnd more likely candidates for
Poe's reading, we surveyed popular astronomy books
from the 1830s. Probably the most famous were the multiple editions of Elijah Hinsdale Burritt's The Geography
of the Heavens, issued in large printings in 1833, 1836,
1838, and later years. (Peggy Aldrich Kidwell surveyed
the Burritt volumes and their enthusiastic public reception in Sky & Telescope for January 1985.)
The 1838 edition of Burritt's book includes language
identifying Biela's Comet as a perfect candidate for Poe's
ﬁctional destroyer:
. . . the path of Biela's comet passes very near to that of the
Earth. . . the matter of the comet extends beyond that path
. . . Thus, if the Earth were at that point of its orbit which is
nearest to the path of the comet, at the same moment that
the comet should be at that point of its orbit which is nearest to the path of the Earth, the Earth would be enveloped in
the nebulous atmosphere of the comet. . . . This is the comet
which was to come into collision with the Earth, and to blot it
out from the Solar System.

British astronomer John Herschel in 1833 published
a popular book titled A Treatise on Astronomy. In 1834 an
American edition appeared with a passage related to a
recent "comet panic" caused by Biela's Comet:
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December 2016 sky & telescope

Poe himself said that he had read John Herschel's
book; one of Poe's later essays describes events in the
summer of 1835: "Harpers had issued an American
edition of Sir John Herschel's 'Treatise on Astronomy,'
and I had been much interested in what is there said
respecting the possibility of future lunar investigations.
. . . I longed to write a story embodying these dreams."
Thus resulted his 1835 story about Hans Pfaall's balloon
voyage to the Moon.
Poe's inspiration for using a comet as a world-ending
agent almost certainly came from his reading about
Biela's Comet, possibly in The American Journal of Science but more likely in the books by Elijah Burritt and
John Herschel.

Lexell's Comet
However, another intriguing passage in "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" doesn't ﬁt at all with
the behavior of Biela's Comet. As Poe's ﬁctional comet
approaches Earth, scientists oﬀer reassurances that
nothing need be feared. Says Eiros,
The very moderate density of these bodies had been well
established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration
either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations
of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing
injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact.

As the comet draws even closer to Earth, reassurances
are repeated:
. . . the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which
served greatly to allay terror.

Lexell's Comet & Earth
Poe's story alludes to the remarkable 1779 passage of
Lexell's Comet through Jupiter's satellite system. Nine
years earlier, this same comet also had an exceptional
encounter with Earth. On July 1, 1770, Lexell's Comet
passed Earth at a distance of only 0.0151 a.u., about
6 times the distance of the Moon. This ranks as the
closest approach of a comet to our planet in recorded
history. But its subsequent very close encounter with
Jupiter - quite a coincidence! - tugged it into an
orbit that will keep it from coming close to us again.

Sky and Telescope - December 2016

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