What if you could discover a speedy space traveler that zooms past Earth again and again?

The Day a Brilliant Astronomer Was Born!

Meet Johann Franz Encke, the man who discovered a speedy comet!

Johann Franz Encke was born and later discovered the fastest comet in our solar system!

On September 1, 1791, a baby boy was born in Hamburg, Germany, who would grow up to become one of the most amazing comet hunters in history!

Johann Franz Encke loved looking at the stars and became a brilliant mathematician. But his most exciting discovery came when he figured out something incredible about a mysterious comet!

You see, people had spotted this fuzzy space visitor several times over the years, but nobody realized it was the SAME comet coming back again and again. Encke spent hours doing complicated math problems — way harder than any homework you've ever seen! — and proved that all those sightings were one comet zooming around the Sun.

Here's the cool part: This comet, now called Encke's Comet, has the shortest orbit of any known comet! It whizzes around the Sun in just 3.3 years. That's super speedy for a comet! Most comets take decades or even centuries to make one trip around our star.

💡 Encke's Comet travels around the Sun so fast that you could see it return THREE times in just 10 years — most comets only come back once in a lifetime!