For thousands of years, comets have fascinated us, filled us with dread, and, in some ways, made us who we are.

The earliest written mythology, the Epic of Gilgamesh, tells a story of a shooting star and questions what it could mean. References to Halley’s Comet are found in Babylonian clay tablets more than 2,000 years old. In China, the Mawangdui Silk Texts, an almanac dated to 168 B.C., contains the oldest known illustrated comet catalog. Later, Christian monks in the Middle Ages believed comets were visiting stars that brought messages or heavenly omens. The Venerable Bede, an Anglo-Saxon monk who lived in the eighth century, is the one who described them as having hair or beards.