Charles Messier was a French astronomer who lived from 1730 to 1817. His favorite pastime was searching for comets in the night sky. He was quite successful, discovering a total of 13 comets in his lifetime—an impressive number considering he used only a 4-inch refractor in downtown Paris. While searching in vain for Halley’s Comet, which was expected to appear near the constellation Taurus, Messier came across an object he initially mistook for the comet. However, he soon realized that it did not move against the night sky as a comet would. He had, in fact, re-discovered the Crab Nebula—now […]
Daily Archives: 03/24/2025
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