Talk:Great Comet of 371 BC

Merge with Aristotle's Comet
Aristotle's Comet is about the same comet. This article also probably has a wrong title, as some of the sources mention that the comet appeared in 373-372 BC (eg. JPL). C messier (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment: I think that we should merge Aristotle’s Comet with this page as this page has much more content, references and information and seems to be the term used more often. We can always move the page title if the year is slightly off. InterstellarGamer12321 ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 18:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree that we should merge the pages and maybe change the name to Great Comet of 372-371BC (it appeared late december into the new year). Aristotle wrote about other comets so I think the article title should include the year. As far as I'm aware this comet is usually referred to as a/the "great comet" As for the discrepancy in dates, I think it may have been the result of confusion due to it appearing over the break between two years. Does anyone have a definitive source for its date? Mmh62531 (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 05:30, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Date of Comet
There is some dispute over whether the comet appeared in 373-372BC or 372-371BC. I've added a section from a source that has the best description of the evidence I can find, however the source is very strange and seems to have some sort of agenda. If anyone else has information that would help date the comet, please share it. Mmh62531 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:48, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Plans to improve the article
I think there are a few ways the article could be improved.

1. A decent summary of the debate of whether or not it is the Kreutz sungrazer source. Marsden thinks it's a good candidate, based on its brightness, place in the sky, its apparent splitting etc. Other astronomers disagree.

2. A good source that describes the dispute over the date. Henriksson has the best published summary I can find but he advocates for this comet being the same as comet encke which makes me slightly suspicious of his seriousness. Which leads into point 3:

3. Identity as comet encke. This seems unlikely to me personally, but Henriksson has published diagrams which show the comet appearing at a very similar position in ~371 BC. This seems to be not widely accepted. Henriksson also claims that comet encke is many other historically observed comets.

4. Possible progenitor of X/1106 C1.

It had been speculated this comet was the source of X/1106 C1, any evidence for or against this would be highly appreciated. Mmh62531 (talk) 09:58, 12 August 2023 (UTC)