Thomas Bopp
Star-gazer who co-discovered Comet Hale-bopp when it appeared after 4,200 years in deep space
THOMAS BOPP, who has died aged 68, was an amateur astronomer who shared the honours with Alan Hale, a professional astronomer, for the discovery of Comet C/1995 01, better known as Comet Hale-bopp, which put on a grand show in the spring of 1997 before departing the inner solar system for a 2,400-year journey through deep space.
Bopp, an Arizona construction company manager by day, first saw the comet on the night of July 23 1995 when he and a friend were observing the star clusters in the vicinity of the constellation Sagittarius with a homemade 17 1/2in reflector telescope. They were admiring the star cluster known as M-70 when Bopp noticed a fuzzy spot in the corner of the eyepiece.
Examining the star charts they had brought with them, they could find no sign of the blur and began to get excited. “I thought it might be a comet,” Bopp recalled, “and I said a silent prayer, thanking God for all the beautiful things up there in space.”
He raced the 40 miles back to his home in the suburbs of Phoenix and, shortly after midnight, reported the finding to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the clearing house for newly discovered space objects.
The next day, the bureau called to confirm that Bopp had indeed discovered a previously unknown comet, but told him that Alan Hale had reported seeing the comet at about the same time in New Mexico. “I let out a whoop and holler when I got off the phone,” Bopp recalled. “My wife says I was dancing around like a crazy man in the dining room.”
Comets are icy balls of dust left over from the formation of the Sun a little more than 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe that most of the water, carbon and gases required for life were brought to Earth by comets, so the appearance of a new comet carries potential for exposing the solar system’s earliest history.
At the time when Bopp and Hale made their discovery, nearly two decades had passed since a good visible comet had graced the skies, and it soon became clear that Hale-bopp, with an icy core some 25 miles in diameter, was a big one – bigger than Halley’s Comet and more than four times the size of the comet that scientists believe crashed into Earth 65 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs. It was estimated that Hale-bopp’s trajectory had last brought it to the inner solar system 4,200 years ago – when Stonehenge was under construction.
In the year or so before it became visible to the naked eye, Hale-bopp caught the public imagination – not always in a good way. An early image contained what appeared to be a companion – a “Saturn-like object” with streaks coming out of the sides – interpreted by some as an alien spaceship (in fact a well-known star whose image had been distorted by the camera).
Further “evidence” of alien involvement was a “course correction” by the comet as it passed by Jupiter; in fact all comets that pass Jupiter get pushed into new orbits by the planet’s gravity. On March 26 1997, four days after Hale-bopp made its closest approach to Earth, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate religious cult in California committed suicide in the hope of being transported to an alien spaceship flying behind the comet.
If Hale-bopp had arrived a few months earlier, it might have passed only 10 million miles from Earth, casting shadows at night in addition to being visible in the daytime – one of the brightest comets in history. As it turned out its closest approach to Earth, on March 22 1997, put it 122 million miles away – much further from Earth than the Sun, so it was not quite the spectacle of millennial proportions people had been hoping for. But it made up in longevity for what it lacked in brightness and more people probably observed Hale-bopp than any other comet in history.
It became visible in May 1996, and although its rate of brightening slowed during the latter half of the year and it was too closely aligned with the Sun to be observable in December 1996, when it reappeared in January 1997 it was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, and it continued to brighten, showing a pair of tails – a blue gas tail and a yellowish dust tail.
On April 1 1997 it shone brighter than any star except Sirius, and its dust tail stretched 40-45 degrees across the sky. It continued to be visible in the southern hemisphere until December 1997, remaining visible to the naked eye for about 18 and a half months, double the previous record of nine months set by the Great Comet of 1811.
In the run-up to its appearance, Bopp and Hale were deluged with invitations to speak about the comet, leading Bopp to resign his job to become a full-time speaker and presenter in schools, science centres and museums. “I’ve been able to travel to some of the world’s major observatories, and people are just wonderful about the comet,” he said. “I’ve gotten tours of Palomar and Kit Peak. I spent the night at Kit Peak observing with the Space Watch program with Jim Scotty”.
But the arrival of Hale-bopp turned out to be bittersweet for Bopp. As it reached its brightest point, his brother and sister-in-law were killed in a car accident after photographing the comet. “This has been the best week of my life. And the worst,” Bopp told a reporter from National Geographic.
Thomas Bopp was born on October 15 1949 in Denver, Colorado, and brought up in Youngstown, Ohio, where his father encouraged his youthful interest in astronomy. Aged 10 he received his first telescope, a four-inch reflector.
After leaving school, he joined the US air force and served in the Philippines and Tucson, Arizona, where he met his wife Charlotte. Later he studied business administration at Youngstown State University. In 1980 he moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to work for a construction company.
His marriage was dissolved and he is survived by a daughter.
Thomas Bopp, born October 15 1949, died January 5 2018