What do you think of this fact?
Some people have a great sense of timing. Mark Twain, the author of “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn,” had a comet for it.
Born under a comet
According to NASA, Halley’s Comet swings close to the Sun about every 76 years on average. The exact time varies because the planets’ gravity tugs on it. NASA says the shortest measured lap lasted 74.42 years, and it happens to be the one from 1835 to 1910.
1835 was the year Mark Twain was born. According to the University of Houston’s program “The Engines of Our Ingenuity,” the comet was in the sky when he was born.
A prediction on the record
Twain knew this and turned it into a punchline. According to Smithsonian Libraries, he wrote in 1909: “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.” A bit of gallows humor, classic Twain.
Then exactly that happened. In April 1910 the comet returned, and according to “The Engines of Our Ingenuity,” Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth. The sources differ slightly on the day: Smithsonian Libraries gives April 20.
To be clear: Twain didn’t summon his own death. He was 74 years old by then. But a writer spending his life exactly between two visits of the same comet, and announcing it in advance, is a story he could hardly have written better himself.
Bonus fact: According to NASA, Halley’s Comet comes back in 2061. Its dust trail already gives us two meteor showers every year, the Eta Aquarids in May and the Orionids in October.
Some people go out with a bang. Twain went out with a tail.