Along with political theory and activity, International Socialist Review took on the charge of educating workers on the knowledge of technology and the sciences. As Halley’s comet approached Earth in 1910, C.J. Pickert answers ‘why is a comet?’

‘Why is a Comet?’ by C. J. Pickert from the International Socialist Review. Vol. 10 No. 12. June, 1910.

BECAUSE two dead, dark stars, wandering through space, came so near as to be reciprocally attractive; that is, they came within a few millions of millions of miles of one another. Then they went for one another. In the course of a few brief centuries, they fell into one another. The occasion was celebrated with fireworks. Each of these cold, dead worlds was thousands of times larger than our little earth, and the impact of their falling together raised temperature from a little above absolute zero to a point where the most obdurate substance becomes gas. Nay, temperature became so high that atoms could no longer maintain their identity, and vast volumes of matter were reduced to a more primary form. We now know that the explosion drove not a little of the substance of the two colliding worlds more than three thousand millions of miles from the center of action; how much farther, we do not know. It is not difficult to understand that everything went whirling; that the entire mass of seething matter acquired a rotary motion; that the conflagration cooled, as its heat was radiated into space; that the cooling caused or permitted a contraction of mass; that localities occupied by denser portions should become centers of attraction, drawing to themselves surrounding particles; that the central portion should be the largest, and by its greater attraction control all the others, and should remain a glowing mass a million years after the smaller outlying bodies had cooled to opaqueness.

Thus became the sun and the planets.

We, ourselves, were mixed up in that ancient collision. Is it any wonder that we have a persistent memory-instinct of eternity? Now, the earth, or any other planet, does not describe a circle, in its path about the sun, because it has not recovered from that old thrust which threw it away from the center. After the thrust, it began to fall back again. But its whirling movement prevented it falling in a right line. The longer it continued falling, the faster it fell; and the faster it moved, the greater became the tangential thrust, until the latter overcame the gravitational power, and it again swung farther from the sun. And thus became the rhythm which brings us within less than ninety millions of miles of the sun in December, and thrusts us more than ninety three millions of miles away in June.

So, with all our sister planets. And so, also with the comets. But why is a comet, instead of a planet?

Because, when those two dead old worlds bumped, splinters of rock, gravel, boulders, in great quantities, were hurled thousands of millions Those that had not, fell directly into the sun; those that had, swing to fall back again, and many of them had acquired a tangential motion. Those that had not, fell directly into the sun; those that had, swing to and fro, as the earth, only, that, being lighter, and falling farther, they describe an ellipse far more elongated. Halley’s swings much nearer the sun than does the earth, and farther than Neptune, and we go around the sun seventy times to Halley’s comet once.

A comet is merely a swarm of meteors traveling in close company. While distant from the sun, there is no tail or “hair,” from which the name is derived. But when near the sun, because it has no protecting atmosphere, the fierce heat boils the gases out of the boulders and gravel, and the sun’s rays exert sufficient power to drive the gas particles. into space. As the comet recedes from the sun, the tail disappears.

Were we but a little slower, or Halley’s comet a bit faster, we should have had an exhibition in May. The earth bears not a few scars which have not been accounted for upon any theory other than contact with comets. And ancient traditions tell of such an occurrence during the human period.

Edmund Halley noted that certain comets traveled in nearly the same path, and came at intervals of seventy years, and boldly foretold the return in 1759, which the comet kindly confirmed, and ever since then we have been adding to our knowledge of why is a comet.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v10n12-jun-1910-ISR-gog-EP-f-cov.pdf