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Kohoutek Cometh

Kohoutek Cometh image
Parent Issue
Day
16
Month
November
Year
1973
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
OCR Text

Kohoutek Cometh

As the Nixon regime topples, comet Kohoutek is shooting towards the sun.

Comets have traditionally been viewed as omens of disaster, particularly of the fall of a society's rulers.

If there's any validity to the superstition, America's corporate behind-the-scenes power-mongers are in for even more trouble than they've had already.

Because Comet Kohoutek is one of the largest comets ever discovered in the solar system, it may turn out to be the most spectacular celestial event seen in several milleniums.

Kohoutek, named for the Czechoslovakian astronomer who discovered it, is expected to light up the skies with a tail which may appear 40-60 times as long as the diameter of the moon. While most comets are visible to the unaided eye, Kohoutek is so big it was discovered last March.

Kohoutek will begin developing a tail by Thanksgiving as it approaches the sun from the southeast horizon, reaching maximum brilliance around Christmas. Afterwards, it will disappear behind the sun, only to reappear in the late night southwestern sky where it will remain visible until February 22nd.

Circle Books has published a flyer describing the event in detail. According to the leaflet, comets are "tiny balls of ice and dust that spend almost all of their lives riding their highly eccentric orbits through the frozen spaces far beyond the reach of Pluto. There may be billions of them out there, 3,000 times farther than Pluto and halfway to the nearest star, yet still tied permanently to our sun.

"They are wanderers who have chosen to go fast and far, who have hurried from our center until they reached incredible distances and became lost in black space. They are specks of dust lost in a frozen wasteland; it is only as they begin to come home that they gain any significance. A comet as it reaches the orbit of Mars on its return journey begins to warm and grow excited by the nearness of the sun. As it melts it emits the gas and dust that it has held trapped for centuries which can create a gigantic head and fiery tail. A major cornet, when it expands. becomes the largest body in the Solar System, larger than the sun. Although it has little density and not much substance, it covers an enormous amount of space."

Astronomers say the nucleus of Kohoutek is a few miles in diameter, but that the total head including gases could extend as much as 100,000 miles in length. The cornet has been heading toward the sun for the past two million years, coming in from a distance of about five trillion miles.

The people at Circle Books had this to say about Kohoutek's potential astrological effects.

"Comets traditionally have been considered to be omens of disaster, indicating the fall of great rulers, famines, lawlessness and plagues. They are new energy, new thought, entering our life from beyond, from the unconscious and if they break up established patterns, it is only to make room for a new beginning.

"To those individuals who hold fast to the past, who leave no room for themselves to change, then any new idea or new direction can be threatening. But for those who remain flexible, who are open to new directions and new life, changes offer them an opportunity for renewed energy, for a renewed interest in life."

Kohoutek is coming. Up against the wall crumbling capitalism, your days are over!