* Astronomy

In the last month of 1947 there suddenly appeared, close to the setting sun, a truly great comet, the brightest to be observed since Halley's comet made its latest spectacular return to perihelion in 1910. So many people saw the new comet at the same time that no one observer could he credited with the discovery. Following the practice of naming comets alphabetically in the order of discovery in the current year, the new comet soon received the name of 1947n. It was, as its name indicated, the fourteenth, and, as it turned out, the last comet to be discovered in 1947. This sets a record, it is believed, for number of comets discovered in anyone year. Some of these were periodic comets returning to perihelion in 1947, including among them Encke's famous short-period comet (1947i), which attained maximum brightness late in November, when it was just at the limit of visibility without telescopic aid. Most of the comets of 1947 were visible only in the greatest telescopes.
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