Great Comet blazes for forty nights

February 2, 1106

From Kaifeng to Canterbury, astronomers sketched the same brilliant visitor streaking across forty consecutive evenings. Korean star-watchers recorded its tail reaching a hundred degrees. Modern orbital reconstructions identify it as the progenitor of the Kreutz sungrazing family. In Europe, chroniclers interpreted the apparition as an omen of the political upheavals tearing the Holy Roman Empire apart, while Song court astronomers catalogued its precise nightly positions with characteristic precision.