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Halley's comet has a period of 76 years so its average distance, i.e. the semimajor axis of the orbit, in astronomical units, is 762/3 by Kepler's third law.

That is 17.9 astronomical units or 2700 million kilometres.

The distance varies from 0.6 to about 35 astronomical units. The orbit is retrograde, meaning that this comet goes round the wrong way. The orbit is inclined by 19 degrees to the ecliptic and the comet spends most of its time in the Southern Hemisphere.

Edmund Halley was the second Astronomer Royal, who took over from the Rev. John Flamsteed. Flamsteed did not like Halley and said, "Mr Halley smokes, swears and drinks brandy like a sea captain". Mrs Flamsteed was instructed to sell all the instruments at Greenwich Observatory in Flamsteed's will, so Halley had to start over again.

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