No. 9 of 27 · The Natural History Series
Head of the Great Comet
Words by Amédée Guillemin
The Great Comet of 1861 glows in soft sepia, its bright head wrapped in curving veils of light as its tail streams into the dark. The plate comes from Amédée Guillemin's The World of Comets, an 1877 history of the great comets, and the back explains how a comet's ice turns to gas near the sun. For someone who loves the night sky.
Add four of your own photos and your own words; we print the card in the US and post it for you.
On the back
From the great astronomy books of the 1800s / Head of the Great Comet / The comet of 1861, on another night / Comets are balls of ice and dust from the edge of the solar system. As one nears the sun its ice turns to gas and streams away in a tail that always points away from the sun. / The World of Comets, 1877 / Amédée Guillemin's history of the great comets, translated from the French by the astronomer James Glaisher. / Natural History · Just Because
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