Halley's Comet begins its 38-year journey back toward Earth tonight

I am 36 years old. My infancy, much less my memory, began too late to see the last visit.

Mark Twain was born as the comet reached its perihelion, and joked - a year or so before the next - that having come in with it he should go out with it. And he did.

I think probably that the not-quite eight decades will be quite enough, and that much as Mr. Clemens saw it twice, I shall fall between the visibilities and miss it barely. But while my great grandfather might never have known what it looked like, I've seen nice pictures taken with good lenses. And I've seen other comets; Hale-Bopp was there for all of us to see just as I was at an age to understand and wonder and before I was old enough to be jaded and not to care. So I can picture Halley's, and I don't think I'm really missing much, for not being able to receive the photons that bounce off its surface directly with my own retinas.

Still, though. The news of the aphelion is a reminder. My life is half over. I have so much left to do.

I was born too late to see Halley’s Comet last time. Growing up I was __insanely__ envious of my slightly older friends who got to see it but I always knew I would live to see it.

After my mothers death I realised I may not actually make it but it made me all the more determined to increase my odds.

EDIT: thinking about it more fully it’s my dividing line for older vs younger millennials.

I was 4 when it came past, I remember going in full cowboy gear late in the evening (9pm?) to Signal Hill in Cape Town to watch the comet over the ocean. Perfect starry cold evening...maybe I'll survive long enough to see it back again!

Shame I won't see it again as I saw it last time around as an adult.

Isn't there a story about Mark Twain entering this world when Halley's Comet arrived in 1835 and left it when the Comet arrived next in 1910?

Seeing Halley’s Comet. I was lucky enough to be born in a year where I may see and remember the “once in a lifetime” event twice.

I was born in April 1986 and will be 75 next time it's visible.