Comet Watch: The Return of Halley's Comet

Winter's post in the Space Science and Exploration Department, Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, gives him the credentials for this book and other works (on adult lists) on rocketry, spaceflights, etc. The readily grasped text is illustrated by color and black-and-white photos and drawings from official sources. The author traces the history of comets from ancient times as they were viewed superstitiously in Egypt, Europe and Mexico. Later chapters concentrate on ""comet chasers,'' the Frenchman Jean Louis Pons, a champion in the 1800s, discovering 37; Lubos Kohoutek who spotted the comet named for him in 1973. Perhaps first recorded in 240 b.c., Halley's Comet, visible again as it has been about every 76 years since, is the newsmaker in 1986 and was last year. Winter provides a comet calendar and information on the space shuttle that will study the phenomenon. (914)