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As this excellent book demonstrates, the study of comets has now
reached the fas cinating stage where we understand comets in
general simple tenns while, at the same time, we are uncertain
about practically all the details of cometary nature, structure,
processes, and origin. In every aspect, even including dynamics, a
choice among several or many competing theories is made impossible
simply by the lack of detailed knowledge. The space missions,
snapshot studies of two comets, partic ularly the one that
immortalizes the name of Sir Edmund Halley, have produced a huge
mass of valuable new infonnation and a number of surprises.
Nonetheless, we face the tantalizing realization that we have
obtained only a fleeting glance at two of perhaps a hundred billion
(lOll) or more comets with possibly differing natures, origins, and
physical histories. To my personal satisfaction, comets seem to
have discrete nuclei made up of dirty snowballs, as I concluded
four decades ago, but perhaps they are more like frozen rubbish
piles.
Smithsonian Contributions To Astrophysics, V2, No. 5.
Smithsonian Contributions To Astrophysics, V2, No. 5.
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