Hale-Bopp helped improve our understanding of comets in many interesting ways and was a priceless event, scientifically speaking.
It also raised the profile of astronomy in general for an entirely new generation of children.
According to NASA, the comet was one of the brightest comets ever recorded to enter the inner solar system, with an absolute magnitude of -1.
For reference, absolute magnitude is the apparent magnitude a comet would have if it was observed at a distance of 1 AU from the Earth and the Sun.