Halley Edmund

Hal·ley

 (hăl′ē), Edmund or Edmond 1656-1742.

English astronomer who applied Newton's laws of motion to predict correctly the period of a comet (1705).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Hal·ley

(hăl′ē), Edmund 1656-1742.

English astronomer who is best known for his study of comets. He accurately predicted that a comet observed in 1583 would return in 1758, 1835, and 1910. This comet is now named for him. Halley was also the first to catalog the stars in the Southern Hemisphere (1679).

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.