Edmond Halley: The Astronomer Who Predicted the Comet's Return

On November eighth, sixteen fifty-six, Edmond Halley was born in Haggerston, England. He was an astronomer, geophysicist, and mathematician, and his academic field was celestial mechanics and cartography.

Halley is best known for his groundbreaking work on comets. By analyzing historical observations of comets and using Isaac Newton's new laws of gravitation, he calculated in seventeen hundred and five that the orbits of comets observed in the years 1531, 1607, and 1682 were so similar that they must be the same comet. He predicted that this comet would return in 1758. When the comet indeed appeared as calculated, it was named Halley's Comet in his honor. This was the first time anyone had predicted a comet's return, and it proved that comets are part of the solar system and obey physical laws. Halley also contributed significantly to other sciences: he published the first maps of the trade winds and monsoons, created an early map of the Earth's magnetic field, and helped finance the publication of Newton's monumental work "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica."