The Mice That Roared!

Abstract

Having now looked at some of the weirder small bodies of the Solar System, we can appreciate how diverse these objects are and how many interesting issues are raised through their study. Nevertheless, as the history of astronomy reveals, astronomers through the ages have not always treated them with the respect that they deserve. As far back as Aristotle, the idea that comets are astronomical objects was too radical for many thinkers. True, the Babylonian astronomer/astrologers appeared to have thought of them as being some odd type of planet, but that notion did not go down well with the early Greek scientists. After having been awed, as a boy of about 12 years of age by the great comet of (circa) 372 BC, Aristotle wrote, much later in his life, that comets were “exhalations from the Earth” and not true denizens of the celestial realm. Exactly what an “exhalation from the Earth” was supposed to have been is not explained, but we presume that it may have had some association with a volcanic eruption. Whatever Aristotle though such a thing to be, apparently he believed that some of them reach the upper atmosphere (which must have been fiery as fire always ascends) and quickly combust whereas others, for some reason not explained, simply burn slowly until they are consumed. The former are meteors while the slow-burners are comets, according to Aristotle. He at least got one thing right—comets and meteors are associated, although the true association between these two classes of object is quite different from the one that he supposed!