March/April 1997

A Life-Changing Event

by Damond Benningfield

Sometime around the year 5000, a bright comet may blaze across Earth's skies. When astronomers check their records, they will resurrect its ancient name: Hale-Bopp. Alan Hale (pictured below) and Thomas Bopp earned this bit of cosmic immortality on the night of July 23, 1995, when they independently discovered the comet amid the star clouds of the constellation Sagittarius.

"This is one of the strangest feelings of all," says Hale. "People at the end of the fifth millenium will know what it is and know our names. Very clearly, this is a life-changing event."

Comet co-discoverer Alan Hale.

For both men, the change began by chance. Hale was watching M70, a globular star cluster, from his home in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, while waiting for another comet to rise. Bopp, who was skywatching from Stanfield, Arizona, with a group of friends, was also observing M70. At almost the same moment, Hale and Bopp noticed a bright, fuzzy smear of light where none should have existed.

They checked their star atlases and catalogs to make sure they were not seeing another star cluster or a galaxy. When the charts came up empty, each realized that he had discovered a comet. "Then I took my life in my own hands, woke up my wife, and asked if she wanted to see Comet Hale," Hale recalls. He and Bopp notified the International Astronomical Union's Central Bureau, which tracks comet discoveries, and the new object was assigned its official name: Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp).

Hale, a professional astronomer, operates the Southwest Institute for Space Research in Cloudcroft. He frequently contributes information on other comets to the Central Bureau for distribution to professional and amateur astronomers around the world.

Bopp is a shift supervisor at a construction materials company in Phoenix and an avid deep-sky watcher. He has watched the stars for more than 25 years, both from Arizona and from his native Ohio. Hale-Bopp is Hale's first comet discovery, and he's not sure he wants to find another. "It would be hard to top this one," he says.

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