Chapter 22 Halley's Comet hits Earth

Among all kinds of doomsday theories, the asteroid hitting the earth is considered to be the most religiously mystical and at the same time a way of scientific reasoning.Unfortunately, Halley's Comet has been identified as the culprit of this disaster many times. In 1680, the 26-year-old British astronomer Halley discovered the largest comet ever seen while traveling in France.Two years later, a comet recognizable to the naked eye appeared in the sky again, especially the long tail trailing behind it, which attracted the attention of all astronomers at that time.Halley recorded the comet's movement in the sky in detail, and he was surprised to find that this was not the first time the comet had come to Earth.

After searching the information hard, Halley was surprised to find that there were records about this comet in 1607, 1531, 1456, 1378, 1301, 1245 and other years.After some deduction, Halley concluded that the comet had its own cycle of motion, and also asserted that it would come to the earth again in 1758.Later, he calculated that it might be affected by Jupiter, and the reappearance of the comet might be one year later.But the mainstream scientific community at the time scoffed at Halley's speculation. On Christmas Day 1758, a German amateur astronomer was the first to discover a returning comet. Messier of the French Observatory also discovered the comet on January 21, 1759.Facts have proved that Halley's speculation is completely correct.To commemorate Halley's great contribution to comet prediction, people named this great comet Halley's Comet.Since then, people's research on Halley's Comet has also begun to climb to a new level.

With the development of optics, in 1881, an astronomer discovered that the comet tail of Halley's Comet contained an extremely deadly gas - cyanide.Nobody knew there was a crisis, and it wasn't until the New York Times published a story about Halley's Comet that people really panicked. At that time, astronomers speculated that Comet Halley would come to the perihelion on May 20, 1910, and the closest distance between it and the earth would be only 25 million kilometers. The "New York Times" boldly speculated that the comet's tail would sweep across the earth without accident, and at that time, the entire planet inhabited by humans would be shrouded in cyanide gas, and people would have to live in this deadly poisonous gas for several days. month time.In other words, if such a situation really happens, then all human beings will be poisoned to death by cyanide gas, and even the earth will become barren.

The New York Times report was reprinted by other newspapers one after another, and many newspapers hired experts to speculate on the end of the world.For a while, the horror news about Halley's Comet plunged the American people into a collective panic, and people rushed to shout: the end of the world is coming. So, people began to indulge in extreme sex.Many people would rather go bankrupt and have fun before the end of the world. Even the day before Halley's Comet arrived, some people didn't want to be poisoned by cyanide and committed suicide by jumping off a building. On the evening of May 19, 1910, an amazing sight appeared in the night sky.A dazzling cluster of stars rises from the horizon, dragging its long tail from west to east, sweeping the night sky like a giant broom.However, just a few hours later, the comet left everyone in a panic.Not only did human beings not be destroyed, any creature on the earth was not affected in the slightest.

This "scientific" end of the world has turned into a worrying joke. And Halley's Comet, which visits the earth every 76 years, has always been considered a precursor to the end of the world, and people will always call this the moment of apocalypse, that is, the judgment of the end. Comet Halley is also known as the broom star, naturally named after its long tail.The old superstition said that the appearance of the broom star may cause war or natural disasters.Even at present, many people think that Saobo will bring disaster and bad luck to people. Ancient numerologists believed that the iron broom is a bad star, and it is most unlucky for a woman to be hit by an iron broom.According to the oral tradition of the old man, the fate of a man is the same as that of a woman, and it is also unlucky to commit an iron broom.Chinese folk derogate comets as "broom star", "broom star" and "disaster star".There are many things in Chinese and foreign history that link the appearance of comets with human wars, famines, floods, plagues and other disasters.

The earliest record of Halley's Comet in China can be traced back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties.According to historical records: "King Wu conquered Zhou, greeted the year in the east, fell to the water, and fell to the head. The comet came out, and gave the Yin people its handle. Sometimes there is a comet, and the handle is in the east, and it can sweep the Westerners!" Since then, for thousands of years, every time Halley's Comet appeared in the sky of China, there were written records in Chinese history books.The most detailed record is in "Han Shu Wu Xing Zhi", which mentions that "at the end of the seventh month, there was a star in Dongjing, who practiced the five princes, went out of He Shubei, and led Xuanyuan and Taiwei, and the day after tomorrow There are more than six degrees, and the morning goes out to the East. On the thirteenth day, I see the West at night. Pass away and offend Dajiao and Sheti. Go to Tianshi and walk slowly according to the festival, enter the middle of the market, and go west after ten days; on the fifty-sixth day, you will lie down with the Canglong."

In September 989 A.D., there were records about Halley's Comet in the historical materials of China and Japan, and Japan changed the year name to Yongzuo because of this.In 1066 AD, Halley's Comet came again, just before the Normans invaded England.People at that time looked at the long tail in the sky, thinking that it was a warning and a sign from God.Afterwards, the Normans successfully conquered England, and the wife of the Norman commander embroidered the scene of Halley's Comet returning to the earth on a tapestry to commemorate it. A series of doomsday prophecies brought by Halley's Comet have made many people "beneficiaries" at the same time that they are in constant panic.Some people took advantage of the rumor that Halley's Comet swept across the earth and claimed to have made a gas mask and a "comet pill". With these two, they can safely survive the disaster period.In Rome, the demand for bottled oxygen is also multiplying, and people hope to use the power of bottled oxygen to help them successfully survive the disaster.

But all of this has become a joke in the eyes of today.