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Discussion below the Space SE question How hard is it to fly through the tail of a comet? Has it been done? has led me to ask if there is any record of the Earth passing through the tail of a comet.

That's tail not trail. The annual meteor showers we talk about, even the unicorns are the Earth passing through the trail of breadcrumbs distributed long ago. This question is about the tail(s) of comets, those things we see in photos and sometimes by eye.

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Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet in 1910. It caused a bit of a panic due to claims that cyanogen detected in the tail would cause harm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet#1910

Linked there is https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/02/08/104920328.pdf

Comet's poisonous tail https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/02/08/104920328.pdf (click for larger)

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    $\begingroup$ H G Wells wrote "In the Days of the Comet" in 1906, in which the earth passes through the tail of a comet. I don't know if astronomers of the time had predicted the Halley event 4 years early: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Days_of_the_Comet $\endgroup$
    – Wayfaring Stranger
    Nov 7, 2020 at 16:37
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    $\begingroup$ @WayfaringStranger Astronomers of that time certainly knew when to expect Halley's Comet. After all, this was its third appearance after Edmond Halley's famous prediction. It seems reasonable to think that Wells & much of the general public would have also known it was coming. $\endgroup$
    – D. Halsey
    Nov 8, 2020 at 1:01
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    $\begingroup$ The comet sure. I wonder if they were accurate to predict the tail intersecting earth 4 years later. $\endgroup$
    – Wayfaring Stranger
    Nov 8, 2020 at 3:11
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    $\begingroup$ @WayfaringStranger What were they expecting to see when Halley's comet appeared in 1910? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Nov 8, 2020 at 3:56
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    $\begingroup$ @WayfaringStranger My source of information (The Return of Halley's Comet by Patrick Moore & John Mason) has a chapter about 1910 that mentions the good agreement between the comet coordinates predicted in 1907 & where it was actually found (yes, the comet itself). It goes on to say that the corrected ephemeris (using measured coordinates in 1910) predicted that the Earth would pass through the tail. So, evidently, that had not been predicted earlier. $\endgroup$
    – D. Halsey
    Nov 8, 2020 at 16:28

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