Comet history

Comet was a pioneer in the arena of out-of-town retail stores and in 1968 the first such store was opened in Hull on Clough Road. It sold televisions and radios and was so successful that a further store was opened in Leeds in 1969.

In 1972 Comet became a publicly traded company and shares began to be sold in the business.

In 1977 American astronomer Charles Kowal discovered an unusual object orbiting the Sun among the giant planets.

But when the orbit of the comet was determined, it was found to lie in the outer asteroid belt with a semimajor axis of 3.16 AU, an eccentricity of 0.162, and an inclination of only 1.39°. A search of older records showed that 133P had been observed previously in 1979 as an inactive asteroid.

The situation changed in 1980 when Uruguayan astronomer Julio Fernández suggested that a comet belt beyond Neptune would be a good source for the short-period comets.

In 1981 American astronomer Jack Hills suggested that in addition to the Oort cloud there was also an inner cloud extending inward toward the planetary region to about 1,000 AU from the Sun.

In 1984 Woolworths owned by Paternoster Stores (later Kingfisher) bought Comet from the Hollingbery family although the head of the family Michael Hollingbery remained in place as chairman.

The question would not be put definitively to rest until the first spacecraft encounters with Halley’s Comet in 1986.

In 1988 American astronomer Martin Duncan and Canadian astronomers Thomas Quinn and Scott Tremaine built a more complex computer simulation of the trans-Neptunian comet belt and again showed that it was the likely source of the short-period comets.

During its latest visible appearence in 1989, Halley’s comet was also the first one ever approached by space probes: the Soviets probes Vega 1 and 2 which flew over the nucleus at less than 9 000 kilometers, followed by the European probe Giotto which crossed it under a 600 kilometers radius!

In 1994, space and ground-based telescopes witnessed a rare planetary catastrophe: comet Schoemaker-Levy which had broke apart in 21 pieces two years ago collided with the gas giant Jupiter.

In 1996 European astronomers Eric Elst and Guido Pizarro found a new comet, which was designated 133P/Elst-Pizarro.

Although far from correct, the latter view was adopted by Aristotle in the fourth century BC, and prevailed for some 2000 years.

Demerged from Kingfisher in 2003, forming a new group known as Kesa Electricals with its sister electrical companies throughout Europe.

Mc Naught is ultimately the most impressive comet of the 21st century thanks to its giant icy and dusty tail stretching around 35 degrees in the sky which helped a rich amount of sunlight to be reflected onto it. Its magnitude eventually reached -5.5 during its activity peak between January 12th and 14th 2007, or in other words brighter than any other stars and planets! A mindblowing display that only the Southern Hemisphere amateur astronomers got the chance to observe.

The final group of 49 stores from the former 235-strong estate close down in December 2012.

Rosetta did not rely on this success and launched its hidden baby lander “Philae” which touched down the comet’s surface on November, 12th 2014.