265. Was a Comet the Star of Bethlehem?

A bright, icy, small Solar System body passes by Earth and is observed around the world every 76 years. Its tail is over 96 million miles long of dust and gas blown out from the coma surrounding its nucleus. British scientist Edmund Halley's calculations predicted the comet would return, and it did. Halley used Isaac Newton's law of gravity to calculate the orbits of the comets. He concluded that these comets were actually the same comet returning on a long elliptical orbit around the sun. The Comet has been observed throughout history, including near the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/Kf-kbs7s-ws which has accompanying visuals. Bedtime Astronomy podcast available at https://amzn.to/4hvFqDc Star of Bethlehem books at https://amzn.to/459CqYY Books about Halley's Comet at https://amzn.to/4hYpuJo ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet  SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you).  Mark Vinet's HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA podcast: www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-north-america                                               Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet                             Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels   Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM  Audio credits: Bedtime Astronomy podcast, Halley's Comet: The Celestial Beacon of Time (July 20, 2024; Synthetic Universe). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.