Halley’s Comet was predicted to be visible during the spring of 1910. The comet’s course brings it close to Earth once every 76 years, and throughout history it had been considered a bad omen. In the past an uneducated populace feared the end of the world as the comet lit up the sky.

1910 would be different; modern science possessed for the first time the ability to photograph the comet and, through spectrographic analysis, determine its makeup, thus putting the less-educated masses at ease.