Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources Reading Comprehension Worksheets The 1900's

A Comet Captured on Film The 1900's

---

A Comet Captured on Film
Print A Comet Captured on Film Reading Comprehension with Sixth Grade Work

Print A Comet Captured on Film Reading Comprehension


Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 6 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	6.54

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		cyanogens, Hail-e, omen, methane, witness, certainty, arrival, theory, sightings, lifetime, orbit, saying, death, plot, traces, ammonia
	content words:		Edmond Halley, King Harold II, Bayeux Tapestry, Mark Twain

---

A Comet Captured on Film By Jane Runyon

---

¹     The world was witness to a rare event in 1910. Halley's Comet was seen and photographed for the first time ever. Do you know the correct way to pronounce Halley? Today the preferred pronunciation rhymes with the word valley. A sometimes used pronunciation is "Hail-e." Halley's Comet has been making an appearance above Earth for quite a long time. Chinese astronomers recorded sightings of the comet as early as 240 B.C. They reported a bright light in the sky followed by a sparkling tail.
 
²     Scientists have only recently been able to describe what makes up a comet with much certainty. Until space travel became available, they were just guessing. In 1986, scientists were able to put a space probe into position to take samples of Halley's Comet to be brought back to Earth and studied. The probe, Giotto, brought pieces of the comet to the scientists' labs. It was found that a comet is about 80% water, of the frozen variety. Nearly 10% of the comet is made of up of the gas carbon monoxide. The rest contains trace amounts of methane, ammonia, hydrocarbons, iron, and traces of sodium. Traces of cyanogens, poisonous gases, were also present.
 
³     Back in 1910, very little of what made up a comet was known. There was only one thing that scientists knew for certain. Halley's Comet made an appearance every 75-76 years. That's the average. On at least two recorded occasions, the time between sightings was over 79 years. The first person to realize that recorded sightings were the same comet was Edmond Halley. Through his studies, he realized that a pattern of time had elapsed between the events that were written in history. He began to plot the times at which people reported seeing this bright light in the sky. Halley developed his theory in 1705.

Paragraphs 4 to 8:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

---

Weekly Reading Books

Create Weekly Reading Books Prepare for an entire week at once!

---

Feedback on A Comet Captured on Film

Leave your feedback on A Comet Captured on Film   (use this link if you found an error in the story)

---

The 1900's

The 1900's

---

United States

United States

American Government         Black History and Blacks in U.S. History         Children in History         Government Careers         Hispanic Heritage         How Can I Help?

Immigration         National Parks and Monuments         Native Americans         Presidents of the United States         Women's History

---

United States History

A Nation Divided (1840-1861)         A New Nation (1776-1830)         After the Civil War (1865-1870)         American Revolution         Cold War (1947-1991)         Colonial America (1492-1776)         Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)         Pearl Harbor         Spanish American War (1898)         The 1890's         The 1900's         The 1910's         The 1920's         The 1930's

The 1940's         The 1950's         The 1960's         The 1970's         The 1980's         The 1990's         The 2000's         The Civil War (1861-1865)         The Great Depression (1929-1945)         The United States Grows (1865-1900)         The War of 1812         Wild, Wild West         World War I (1914-1918)         World War II

---

50 States

Fifty States Theme Unit

---

Document Based Activities

Document Based Activities

Copyright © 2025 edHelper