SE C RE T S O F T H E

ST A RS

BY

IN E Z N: M C FE E
Anthot of A I
Sto ries o f merican n ven tio ns ,
” “
Little
T ”
Tales o f Co mmo n hings, etc .

N E W YO RK
T HOMAS Y C R OWE LL C O M P AN Y
.

P UB LISH E RS
 P RE FA C E
“
Emerson once said : If the stars should ap
pear one night in a thousand years how would ,

men believe an d adore an d preserv e for m any

,

generations the remembrance of the city of God

”
which had been shown 1
But the stars are so common ; we m ay look at
them o n every clear night so the most of us p ay
,

them small heed In all ages however there

.
, ,

have been observing an d thoughtful ones who

have sought to read in the stars the ans wers to
various questions about the Universe until at ,

the present time the world is dotted with o bser v

ato r ies equipped with a great variety of in stru

ments for studying the celesti al b odies an d as ,

tro no my has come to be regarded as the golden

ch ain between the E arth an d the heav ens In .

d eed so closely does it bind the two that the o n e

, ,

is mapp ed by means of the other B y the wise.

guidance of the stars fleets and caravans are

,

sent over was tes of sea an d sand which would

otherw ise be trackless an d imp ass able By the .
vi P RE FA C E
t
s ars are o ur clocks an d watches timed our lands ,

surveyed and the boundaries o f our nations

,

reckoned In their twinklin g faces are recorded

.

not only the p ast an d future of the comp aratively

small mud ball which is our dwelling place but
- -
,

therein is also revealed the marvelous creation of

the whole vast Universe There is scarcely a sci
.

ence or an in dustrial activity of an y kind that has

not dep ended upon the revelations of starlight
for its advancement In truth there is not a
.
,

civilized p erson anywhere in the whole wide world

whose life is not rendered more worth the living ,

or whose comfort is not affected at least indi,

r ectly
, by the work of astronomers an d others
who are applying the principles o f this science
to the practical affairs of daily life .

And yet so used are we to taking everything

for granted that to most of us the rising an d
, , ,

setting of the Sun the m arvelous phas es of the

,

Moon an d the march of the glittering star hosts

,

a cross the sky excit es no wonder an d in spir es n o

awe in our bre asts W e are dead to the won

.

dr o us truths m o re glorious than an y tale of mys

,

tery or romance that are Spread continu ally b e

,

—
fore o ur eyes in the great boo k of the sky God s ’
 PREFACE vii
o wn clear p age . Our p ainted American savages ,

the A r ab in the desert the simp le ignorant chil

, ,

dren of the race on the b anks of the Nile the wild ,

men on the islands of the sea have all been more

,

observant than we as a general people are to day l -

I t is im possible to read the literature o f mo dern

times without stumbling upon references to star
legends which have b een h anded down since time
immemor i al . They are the efforts of primitive
m an to understand an d ex plain the wonders
which they saw all about them They constitute
.

the poetry of the sky which we sh all certainly

,

find delightful even if our minds are so consti

,

tuted that the drier more scientifi c facts of as

,

tro no my do n o t appeal to us L et us then

. , ,

rouse ourselves an d at least make friends with the

mysterious giant figures that people the blue
d ome of the sky ! Once we learn to look upon
these an d to reco gnize them as the faces of o ur
friends we can but be interested in the countless
,

things they have to tell us .

Nor is an y app aratus really needed for our

study of the stars s ave th at which N ature sup
,

p lies— a good p air o f sh arp eyes R ememb er.

,

telescopes , while they m ay add greatly to the in

v ii i PREFACE
terest were invent ed no longer than fo ur hun
,

dred years ago an d all the planets an d most of

,

the st ars that are now known had alrea dy been

discovered an d named Likewise too countless
.
, ,

o f the most unfathomabl e mysteries of the ski es

have been discovered by no other aid than a clear

eye an d an inquiring mind H ave you these ?
.

Join hands th en my readers an d let us go pros

, , ,

p e c tin g for the secr ets o f th e v ast suns of sp a c e

—
the b oundl ess stars which populate the in
-
“

”
finite meadows o f Heaven .

The author gratefully ackno wledges her in

debtedn ess to the many published works on as
tro n o m y which ar e available b oth for the b egin
,

ner and advanced student in this fascinating sub

j ec t Authoriti
. es an d wor k s ar e cited in th e text ,

but special thanks are due to Messrs C assell .

Co Ltd for courteous permission to quote from

. .

“ ”
B all s Starland’
.

I N M cF . . .

Sp rin gdale, A rk .

Jul y 1, 1922 .
 C ONTENT S
WH AT THE ST ARS ARE

T H E SU N , To GRE AT E ST ST AR O F AL L
Us T HE

M O T H E R E ART H A C H IP FRO M T H E S U N S T AR
,
-

S O M E T H IN G AB O U T T H E O T H E R P LAN E T S
M ercury; the Sp a rkli n g O n e
“ ”

Ven us the E venin g S tar

,

M a rs, the Red P lan et

T he Astero ids
J upiter the Gian t
, P la n e t
S aturn , U ran us, an d N e ptune
T HE MOON , A D A UGH T E R O F T HE E ART H

J C O M E T S, OR T H E G H O ST S OF SPA C E
! T H E N E B ULE O R FIRE M IST
“S H OO T IN G S T ARS

C O L ORE D A N D D O U B LE S T ARS

T H E M IL K? WAY

T H E C O N S T E LLA T IO N S A N D T H E ZO D IA C

P RIN C IP A L S T ARS A N D P LA N E T S
G LO SSARY O F TE RM S
IN DE x
 Ye t
s ars ! whi ch a re heaven !
the po etry of

I f in yo u b right leaves we w o uld re d the fate

r a

Of men an d empires — tis to be fo rgiven

’

That in o ur aspiratio ns to be great ,

O ur destin ies o e le p th ei mo rtal state

’
r a r

An d claim a kin dr ed with yo u ; fo r ye a re

A beauty an d a mystery an d create ,

In us such lo ve an d reveren ce fro m a far ,

That fo rtun e fame po wer life have n amed

, , , ,

a star
”
.

B yro n : C hil de H o rold c P ilgrimage

’
- .
 I LLU STRA T I ONS A ND DIA GRA MS
M ap of theStars , 12 r. it Ap ril
Fro n t
.

en d
-
lea ves
M ap O f the Star s , 12 r. u. J uly
S aturn July 2 189 4 , Fro ntisp iece

A G re t Sun Sp o t Sept
a , . 1 1, 1 89 8 34

So la r P ro min en ces, M ay 2 8 , 190 0 88

So lar C o ro na April 16 18 98 an d M ay 2 8 19 00
, , , 89

E clip ses 60

T he Fo ur S easo ns 61

C o mparative Si zes O f the P lan ets 68

O rbits O f the I nn er P lan ets an d the Outer P lan ets 69

M ap o f M ars 1 8 9 6 9 7 -
94

T he M o o n : Third D ay 18 2

T he M o o n : R egio n o f C lavius a d Ty ho n c 1 33

Three Fo ms o f P ath P o ssible to C o mets

r 144

C o met o f D o ati O ct 5 1 8 5 8
n , .
, 14 5

T he G eat N ebula in O rio

r n 15 8

T he Great N ebula in An d o meda r 15 9

An I rregular N ebula in C ygn us 16 7

T he Milky Way Aro un d the Sta r C luster M essier II 19 3

des
T he P leia 2 04

T he Grea t N o rth ern C o n stellatio n s 2 05

xi
x ii I LLUSTRAT I ONS
C o ns tellatio ns I : Auriga Aquil B oo tes C anis M aj o r
, a, , 2 14

C o ns tell ati o ns II C o m C o ro n a C ygn us D elphin us

a, , , 2 15

C o nstell tio ns III : D aco H ercul es H ydr a Ly a

a r , , ,
r 222

C o nstellatio ns IV : O phiuchus O io n P egasus P h eto n ,

r , , a 223

Sign s f the Zo diac

o 2 32

C o nstell ti n s f the Zo diac I : Aries Aqua

a o o , rius, C an cer,
C p ico rn us
a r

C o ns t ell tio ns o f the Zo di c II : G em i i

a a n , Leo , Libr a ,

P isces

C o n stell atio n s of the Zo di ac III : S agittarius S co rpio , ,

T aurus Vi ,
r go

M ap of the Sta rs, 1 2 P M . O cto b er

B ack en d -
leaves
M ap of the Stars , 12 P . M . J an uary
SE C RE T S O F T H E ST A RS
I
W H AT THE STARS A RE
“
Silen tly one by o ne in the in fi ite m e do w s o f h e
n a aven

B lo sso m e d the lo vely t

s a r s, the fo get m e n o ts o f
r - -
the

an
gel s .

PE RC HAN CE you m ay h ave stood out in the

o p en only just l ast nig ht an d watched them !

Perchance too y o u murmured softly to your

, ,

self as y o u so often h ave

,

Twin kle twin kle little st , ar,

H w I w o n d e w h t yo u
o r a are

do you not kn ow T he stars are suns

B ut , ? .

A stronomers tell us th at our Sun is a star an d ,

that it is not nearly so bright an d by no means ,

as large a s m any of the st ars which shine over

,

our heads at night But they are so far away .

that their s p lendid light seems to us but a mere

Sun is our nearest star

T he miles
away If we cou ld fly thirty miles
. an hour ,
2 WHAT THE STA RS ARE
an d should set out for the sun not pausing for ,

rest night or day we should reach our destina

,

tion in 345 years ! N atur ally the brightness of

the Sun s glare as it sweeps upon us by day
’
, ,

shuts out the glimmer of the more dist an t stars .

B ut they ar e always in the sky even though ,

invisible to the naked eye If we could stand .

u pon one of the bright st ar s which we see in

the heavens an d look toward our Sun we would

, ,

be surprised to fi nd how dim an d insign ificant

it looks It would app ear as a small star if
.
, ,

indeed we were able to see it at all

, .

“ ”
To the ancients s ays M acpherson in his
, ,

Ro man ce o f M o dem A stro n o my the earth was

‘ “
,

the cent er of the Universe fix ed an d immovable

, ,

the en d an d aim of the entire creation Round .

the E arth revolved the Moon the Sun the , ,

planets each in its own p articu lar complicated

,

p athway an d farther away the fixed st ars

, , , ,

which they believed to be points of light fastened

to the in side of a sphere What lay beyond .

was outside the Universe T he whole Un iverse

.

was supposed to b e sm all in extent ; its size w as

quite easily grasped by the mind of m an T he .

Universe too in the opinion of the ancients

, , ,
 WH A T T H E S TA RS A RE 8

was created purely for the benefit of the Earth s ’

inhabitants the Sun to give light an d he at an d

, ,

the Moon to il lum in ate the nights while the st ars

,

were regarded as convenient seconda ry light

”
g ivers in the absen ce of the Moon .

How much gre ater is our kn owledge to d ay l -

W e kn ow that the E arth is far from being the

center of the Universe ; it is not even the center
o f the planetary system to which it belongs .

Indeed instead of being the largest an d most

,

important body in the Universe the earth is ,

“
merely the seco nd rate satellite of a secon d
-

rate star ! Nor are the d imensions of the Uni

verse at all within the bounds of man s compre ’

hen sio n . T he solar system alone is over

—
millions of miles in diam eter Wh at mind can
.

—
conceive of this illimitable vastness And the
so lar system — that is our Sun with its planets ,

—
their satellites an d the comets is a mere sp eck
,

when co mp ared with the greater system of the

stars . Indeed we are told that
, solar

systems of the size of ours could b e contain ed in

the sp ace which isol ates us from Alph a Centauri -

,

the ne arest star Trul y the study of the stars

.

—
the science of astr on omy is the science of I n
4 WHAT THE ST AR S ARE
fin ity and Eternity By means of the telescope
.

an d the sp ectroscop e we ar e led on an imm easur

,

able j ourn ey aw ay i n to boundless Sp ace wher e

even Tim e its elf is lost .

In the entire stellar system there are prob

ably about st ars Whether each of
.

th ese stars is surrounded by attendants like ,

those which surround our sun is impossible to ,

determine ; but it is altogether probable an d it ,

aids u s in r ealizing the extent an d m agnificenc e

of the Universe in which we are situ ated B e .

tween the earth an d Alph a Centauri ( in visible

-

only in southern latitudes ) stretches an immense

desert of sp ace twenty five billions of miles
,

across . It is h ard to grasp an idea of such a

vast distance Profes sor B all s ays that it would
.

t ake years of ceaseless counting day

an d night even to count th at numb er of miles .

A gain he says th at all the cotton yarn ev er

Spun in the w orld j oined in o n e lo n g thread
, ,

would not reach to C en t auri Furthermore he

.
,

tells us that it takes light four years to come from

this star to the earth .

But this is n o t all When we look at the

.

star now we see it as it was four years previously .

 WHAT THE STA RS ARE 5

In fact if the star were to go out alto gether we

, ,

might still co ntinue to see it twinkling for a

p e riod of fou r ye a rs long e r bec aus e a c er ta in ,

amount of light was on its wa to us a t the

y
moment of extin ction an d so long as that light
,

keeps arrivin g here so long shall we see the star

,

showing as brightly as ever When therefore .

, ,

you look at the thousands of st ars in the sky

to night there is not o n e that you see as it is
-
,

now but as it was ye ar s ago

, .

With the aid of our telescop es we can bring

into view thous ands of st ars so far distan t th at
their light must have been hu n dr eds of years on
its way to us When we behold them we do not
.
,

see them a s they are to day but as they were -

,

many many years ago Some in fact m ay b e

, .
, ,

utterly extinct .

On the oth er hand suppo se there were astro n o

,

mers living in these distant worlds If they had .

telescop es powerful en ough they could witn ess ,

—
events on our own planet but they woul d see ,

n o t our busy life of to day but p erch ance som e

-
,

g re at scenes of the p a st— th e B attl e of W a t er

lo o Columbus discovering America o r the Cru
, ,

“
sades I ndeed says o n e writer If we coul d
. , ,
6 WHA T T HE STA R S A RE
view o ur o wn Earth from mirro rs reflected in the
stars we might still see Moses cro ssing the Red
,

Sea or Adam an d Eve being expelled from

,

”
Eden l
Thus it will be seen that if we had telescopes
powerful enough to read an d un derstand the
stars man y of the secrets of the Universe woul d
,

be such no longer For ex am ple if we co uld

.
,

view the earth through the successive epochs O f

the p ast all the geological problems that now
,

puzzle us would be quickly solved W e should .

“
be actually able to see those great anim als whose
fossil remains are treasured in our museums
tram ping about over the E arth s surface splash
’

in g across its swamps or swimming with bro ad

,

”
flippers through its oceans I n deed could we
.

but in terpret the revel ation s of starlight we ,

should have mirrored before us a story which

for maj esty wonder an d sheer unexpectedness
, ,

would stand unrivaled in the whole realm O f

literature .

At first thought it would seem wholly im po s

sible to m easure the dist an ce of a star from the
E arth But astronomers tell us that the
.
8 WHAT THE STA RS A RE

the b ackground of the heavens gives him the

p arallax angle which he has been working to
secure .

T he theory is good but the trouble is

,

that the displacement at best is exceedingly

slight — “
about equ al to the app arent dist ance

between the heads of two pins placed an inch

”
ap art an d viewed from a dist ance of 1 8 0 miles !

Indeed in the vast m ajority of in st ances stars

, ,

measured in this way show no app arent displace

ment or at best give such a minute p ar allactic
,

angle th at it is impossible to s ecure trustworthy

results Fortunately however in this day an d

.
, ,

age w e n eed no longer dep end entirely on this

method for star measurements T he perfection

.

of an in strument called the heliometer for mak

in g an gul ar me asurements on the sky together ,

with the dev elop ment of st ar photography an d

-
,

certain other more recen t methods have redu ced ,

st ar measuremen ts to such a degree of accurate

ea s e th at w e now h ave p arall axes b ased on the

milli on ths of a second of arc Indeed the far

.

therm o st object known in the h eavens is a globu

lar star cluster at a dist ance of

-
quadrillio n

miles . C an o n e imagine anything lik e this

 WH A T THE STA R S A RE 9

enormous dist ance away into sp s ee ? It is more

than thirteen an d one half tr illions times greater
-

than the dist ance to the Sun If o n e could em

.

b ark o u a cannon ball traveling half a mile p er

second o n e would be eighty billion years reach
,

in g this go al Again a giant would need to

.
,

take billion strides as long as the distance

fro m the E arth to the Sun to reach this far o fl -
’

cluster .

From the very b egin ning of star me asure

ment it was seen that the term mile conveyed
little meaning when applied to star distance
Therefore astronomers invented a n ew u n it the
,

light year for the distance tr aversed by light

,

in o n e year As light travels about

.

miles per second it will be seen that the light

,

year is well fitted by its stupen dous magnitude

for measuring the immense distan ces of stellar
sp ace It also affords the best possible medium
.

for our co mprehension when used in comp arison .

For ex am fl e light crosses the diameter of the

,

entire solar system in eight hours : yet it takes

a bout four years to come from Alpha C entauri
-
.

Light reaches us from 61 Cygni o ur first —

star to be measured — at a distance of fi fty
10 WH A T T HE STA RS A RE
three billions of miles away in about seven years ;
,

it co mes from Sirius the most brilliant st ar in the

,

sky fifty eight billions of miles distant in eight

,
-
,

years Light is a little over twenty nine years

.
-

“ ”
in re aching us from Aldeb aran the Bull s eye ; ,
’

it t akes forty four years to co me from the Pole

-

star ; an d over two hundr ed years to tr avel from

A rcturus the brighte st star in the northern
,

constellatio n of B o Otes the H erdsman How

, .

enormous must be this latter star which Shine s

so brilliantly from such a vast distance ! C o m .

p ared with Arcturus our Sun great an d splen

, ,

did as he appe ars is but a mere dot Sp eaking

,
.

of this enormous sun of sp ace Serviss says : ,

“
Imagine the earth an d other plan ets co n stitut
in g the solar system removed to Ar cturus an d
set revolvin g roun d it in orbits of the same forms
an d sizes as those in which they circle about the

Sun Poor Mercury ! Fo r that little pl anet it

.

woul d indeed be a jump from the frying p an

in to the fi re because as it ru shed to perihelion
, ,

the point o f its orbit n earest the Sun Mercu ry ,

would plunge more than miles beneath

the surface of the gi ant star Venus an d the
.

E arth would melt like snowflakes at the mouth of

 WHA T THE STARS ARE 11

a furnace E ven far away N eptIm e would

.
-

”
swelter in torrid heat .

A ll this but brings us to a ful ler realization

“
that in deed One star difl ereth from another
,
’

star in glory For not only are the stars to be

.

found at all dist ances but they vary in s ize , ,

an d frequently their m arv elous immen sity is

even more o verwhelming th an their dist an ce .

We find it diflicul t to conceive of a body so

vast as o ur Sun A di ameter a hundred times
.

that of the E arth means little L et us set up .

the familiar illustration of a foot b all an d a bird -

Shot side by side : now we h av e a good comp ara

tive idea of the size of the Sun an d the E arth If .

possible try to imagine a gigan tic orb equal to

,

four thousand such suns as ours : this is C apella ,

a brilli ant sta r midway between the Pole star

and the constellation of Orion the glory of o ur ,

winter skies Two other inconceivable orbs are

.

Rigel an d Betelgeuse the two brilliant stars,

in Orion . The latter is one of the wonders of

modern astronomy I t has been estimated as
.

fo rty three million times larger than our Sun !

-

A n d Antares a star in the constellation of Sco r

,

p i on is said to be m uch larger th an B ete lguese .

12 WH A T T HE STA RS A RE
More than this it has been averred that however
startling the Size of An tares may p rove to be ,

there are other stars whose imm ensity m ay even

surp ass it !
“
I n fin ite as the sands of the sea thus the
,

ancients styl ed the n uniber of the stars in the

h eaven s To day we know that this estimate is

.
-

overdrawn for were the st ars in reality so numer

,

ous the whole heaven s would be bright with a

diffu sed light and there woul d be n o night
, .

Indeed you m ay b e sur prised to kn ow that the

,

stars that m ay be seen with the naked eye co unt

,

in g over the whole range o f the Sky are no,

more than at best wh il e those which m ay

,

be seen in an y o ne locality will not number

above Than ks to the spectroscope we
not only know of what the stars are made but ,

we are able to dis cern th at they revolve in orbits

an d are moving through Sp ace at a high speed .

Yet they are so far away fro m us that they

seem to b e fixed an d so we generally consider
,

“ ”
them sp eaking of them as fix ed stars to dis
,

“ ”
tin guish them fro m the planets or wandering
“
stars Thus as one authority points o ut T he
.
, ,

constellati o n Orion preserves thr ougho ut the

 WHAT THE ST A RS ARE 13

a ges its well known form Similarly the Plow

-
.

shines down o n us to day as it did on the king

-

do m of Israel an d on the plain s of Troy So .

that for all pra ctical purposes we are correct

in speakin g of the fix ed st ars And yet .
,

scientifically speaking we are wrong T he stars

, .

are no more fix ed th an are the planets Indeed .

,

many of the stars are movin g through sp ace

with a velocity far greater than the swiftest of
the planets For example 6 1 Cygni moves
.
,

at the rate of thirty miles per secon d ; whil e

the bright star Arcturus has been calcul at ed

to have a velocity of no less th an 37 6 miles per
second B ut so distant are the st ars so
.
,

deep are they sunk in the depths of sp ace th at ,

in the course o f hundreds even thousands of ,

years the casual star gazer can detect no dif

,
-

”
ference in their positions .

Whither ar e all the he aven ly bodies fleein g ?

This question troubled astronomers for ages ,

nor has it ever been entirely settled We do .

kn ow however that our own Sun with his

, , ,

system of worlds is moving along at the rate

,

of eleven miles per seco nd toward the constella

1 M acpherso n .
14 WHAT THE STA RS A RE
tion of Lyra aiming app arently for the star
,

kn own as Delta Lyra But although this voy

-
.
,

age has been in progress since the human race

has been in existence the eye of m an has never

,

y et b een able to no te an y r esulting displ aceme n t

of the stars unaided Moreover it is certain.
,

that not less than years must p ass before

o ur system even moving at this impetuous speed
, ,

coul d possibly traverse the distance to the poin t

n o w occu pied by the n earest st ar So that .
,

while this mi ghty voyage through sp ace is im

pressive we have no cause whatever for alarm
, .

Another feat of the spectroscop e is to show

us that the stars are not all moving in the sam e
direction For example the brilliant st ar Alde
.
,

bar an is speeding away from our system at the

asto n ishing rate of thirty mil es er s econd
p .

Some st ars Share their prop er motions with

”
others . That is they move along at the same
rate as some other neighborin g star or stars .

For instance five of the s even stars which make

,

up the familiar con stellation of the Big Dipper

are moving with the s am e velocity an d in the

same direction an d it is app arent that th ey form

,

on e st ar system , even though they ar e s eparat ed

-
16 WH AT T H E S TAR S AR E
sorts of co njectures have been advanced None .

seems cle arer however than that voiced by

, ,

Profes so r Garret P Serviss who sees the gre at

.
,

Milky W ay driving through sp ace like a flat

“
,

shining raft built up of hundreds of millions

,

—
of stars o ur little Sun being lo st among them
an d dr awing in from eith er side an d from dis
. ,

tances of hundreds of qu adrillions of miles ,

vast stellar organisms of a globular shap e on

, ,

which it feeds an d grows while from before it , ,

like frightened fl ocks of strange winged crea

tures hatched in the midst of the mysterious an d
,

boun dl ess ether flee the spiral nebula speeding

, ,

—
madly o u o u o n— .

Surely a strange weird an d wondrously

, ,

interesting romance is the sto ry of the star s !

Suppose that this very night while we were ,

atten tively studying the heavens there should ,

suddenly spri ng into place in a wide p atch of ,

blue a bright an d be autiful st ar ! A st ar which

,

no catalogues record for the reason that it is

,

a sta r which no one has ever seen b efore ! A n d

yet such a n occurrence would b e by no means

un usual : an y well versed astronomer would be
-

able to p redict accurately the new arrival s ’

 WHAT T H E STAR S AR E 17

co urse Fo r several nights it would grow in

.

brilliancy until perchance it ranked with the

,

brightest stars in the he avens ; th en it would

begin to wane an d die down to the appearance
of a faint star or perhaps disapp ear altogether .

What do es it mean ? Whence came the brief

visitor ? At fir st it was supposed th at these
temp orary stars as they are ca ll ed r ose from
, ,

a violent collision between two heavenly bodi es .

T he spectroscop e by analyzing the flame p r o

,

duced not only showed this highly im prob able

, ,

but suggested wh at is now univers ally accepted

as the real solution that two st ars in th eir jour
,

n ey through sp ace h app en into a n ebulous r egion ,

an d thus flare up by rea son of frictio n — a th eory

that is further supported by the fact that tem

p o r ar y st ars seem n
. ear ly a lw ays to b e involv e d
with a nebulous haze But the most amazin g
.

p art of it is that this occurrence which we herald

a s the app ear ance of a n ew st ar is in truth
, ,

only the message of a huge disaster a mighty ,

co nflagr atio n which too k pl ace hundreds , p er

haps thousands of years ago an d has but now

,

r eached us o n the wings of light .

M an y instances of temporary stars are o n

18 WHAT THE STARS ARE
record one of the earliest havin g been seen by
,

Hipp archus the famous Greek astronomer in

, ,

the year 134 B C One of the most notable

. .

heavenly co nflagratio n s took place in M ay 18 66 , ,

when an ordinary telescopic st ar suddenly

blazed forth with such intensity th at in a few
hours it increased its brilliance nearly a thou
sand fold C areful sp ectr oscopic study of its
.

phenomen a showed th at the outbur st w as due

to an explosion of hydrogen gas an d the inci
,

dent caused no little uneasiness everywhere .

“
Wh at woul d likely be the result if a co nflagra
,

tion like that which too k place on this remote

”
sun wer e at any time to happen to o ur Sun ?
queried an Edinburgh astr onomer thus voicin g ,

“
the fe ar of all .Not only woul d all the vari ous
forms of life on E arth be utter ly destroyed but ,

o n all the m embers of our sol ar system th ere

woul d be such a change e ffected that if an y life

,

existed even on the remo te Neptune it would

at once be completely extingui shed Probably .

the life that exist ed on the whole system of

worlds that circled r ound this di stant star must
have been ann ihilated an d as the h eat an d light
,

of this star incre ased so very suddenly there ,

 WH AT T HE S T ARS AR E 19

co uld h ave been given but Short warn ing to the

”
inhabitants of these worlds .

Temporary stars only blaze up once an d then

die down but ther e is another class called
, ,

variable stars which ar e quite as remarkable

, ,

an d h ave given a stronome rs ev en mor e diffi cul t

h ours to account for their peculiarity These .

stars get brighter an d brighter up to a certain

point then wane only to brighten ag ain with
, , ,

a r egul a rity th at can b e reckoned with the utmost

accur ac y
. Some go through their course in
three days others take much longer the m ax
, ,

imum being 600 days Wh at is the explan a

.

tio n ? A Simple enough o n e truly ! Either ,

these stars h ave a smaller dark comp anion which

gets around into position every so often an d shuts
o ff the light or they h ave a bright double
, ,

which in certain lines incre ases or decreases the

brilliancy .

Still not half of the wonders of the stars h ave

been told ! We shall see as these p ages progress
how m an has ever turned to the heavens to n u
ravel the answers to much of N ature s puzzling ’

phenomena In the stars he has not only

.

deciphered the p ast Of our own world but he ,

20 WHAT THE STARS A RE
has in t measure been able to trace its
a grea

futur e For just as the buds blossoms an d

.
, ,

seeds of the plants in o ur gardens record the

life history o f their species SO do the different ,

stages O f star an d planet life from the various ,

masses of luminous nebula to the dead worlds

an d d ark stars reco rd the p ast an d futur e of
,

our own dwellin g place the E arth We are as

-
, .
,

Kepler one of the early astronomers long ago

, ,

pointed out permitted in a measure to see the

,

marvelously wonderful method by which the

Creator called into being the magnificent
Universe in which we live ; to think as it were
the thoughts of God after Him ! We realize ,

too as we ponder a n ew depth and beauty in

, ,

“
the words of the prophet Isaiah : For My
thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ,

ways My ways saith the Lord : for as the

,

heavens are higher than the e arth so are My ,

ways higher than your w ays an d My thoughts

’
than your thoughts .
 T HE SUN , TO US T H E G R E AT E S T S T AR O F ALL

T HE rly peoples of the world worshiped

ea

the Sun as the Lord of D ay the Fountain of ,

Light an d the Brin ger of all thin gs go od B ut

, .

they were at a lo s s to a ccount for him :

Whence are Sun , thy everla stin g light ?

thy beams , 0
Tho u co mest fo rth in thy aw ful beauty ; the sta rs hi de
themselves in the Sky the mo o n , co ld an d pale, sin ks
in the western wave ; but tho u thysel f m o vest a lo n e.

—On ia n

And whither ? No o ne knew th at the E arth

was round when O ssian wrote
, They thought .

it was a gre at flat plain extending in every ,

direction It seemed th at the Sun d aily trav

.

ersed the sky only to plunge into the western sea !

Indeed there were those who fanci ed they

,

hear d the dr e adful hissing noise when the glow

in g red hot orb dr opped into the A tlantic ! B ut
,
-

here was the difi culty : how did it get aroun d

to the E ast an d r ise fresh and hot as ever the
,

21
22 TH E SUN
next mornin g ? S ur ely the plunge into the water
should have quenched it ! Some said that we
had an entirely n ew sun each morning The .

business of making the suns was supposed to

be in the hands of the go ds ; all day an d all
night they worked with Titanic energy an d ,

each succeeding morn ing saw a new orb launched

forth on its j ourney .

This however seemed a waste of suns an d

, , ,

presently a new theory was evolved : Vulcan ,

the God of Labor had the matter in charge

,
.

When the Sun dr o pped into the sea in the West

.
,

it was his business to rescue it an d row it around

the northern route to the E ast Some of those .

who sat up all night to watch for indication s

of the progr ess of this j ourn ey fancied they ,

could trace the light of the glorious cargo along

the northern hori zon B esides how else could
.

one acco unt for the long midsummer twilight ?

A tedious night s voyage poor old Vul can had
’

of it ! Nor was there even a moment s respite ’

.

As soon as he reached the E ast he m ust launch ,

the Sun with ter rific energy so th at it would

,

not flag nor falter all the day an d then p addle

,

b ack the way he had come with unceasing in

,
24 TH E SUN
D O yo u kn ow that it is stored up sunshin e? -

“
W hy you exclaim the fire is only co al
”
,
“
,
”
.

Yes but what is coal ? It is the fossil remains

,

of giant trees huge ferns an d luxuri ant grasses

, ,

an d mosses which once grew by re aso n of the

warm sunshin e an d soil water These muffins -

.
,

too were made from wheat grown by the Sun

, .

Even the very power that ground the flour came

from the Sun .

No matter whether ground in a mill turned

by wind o r by steam the Sun did the work For
, .

the Sun furnishes both wind an d water All .

the air curr ents on our earth are due to the

Sun in this wise : great tracts of land are warmed
by the pleas ant sunbeams T he air in turn .
, ,

is heated an d rushes upward while the cooler ,

air slips in to fill its pla ce To do this the .

,

air o f co urse
, moves across the country I t
, .

is wind And it is the Sun that has started

.

it All the water we use comes fr om the clouds

. ,

either as snow or rain Even the water we have

.

here in our teapot was floating far overh ead ,

only a little while ago B efore th at per chance

.
, ,

it was just some tiny dr ops of water in the

o cean The Sun p o ured down his warm beams
.
 T H E SU N 25

u pon them , the d ro ps turned to vapor an d ,

climbed into the sky there to un ite in the coo ler

,

atmm p here with other risin g drops and thus

form a cloud which flo ated o ur way By an d

, .

by the wind came ru shing along the vapor ,

cooled still mor e an d ch anged b ack to drops

aga in f alling as r a in un ti l presen tly the little

, ,

cl oud wept itself away T he drops seeped .

down deep into the soil an d at length foun d ,

their way into the underground vein which

empties into our well Our tea is a pro duct of
.

sunshine . It came over sea in a ship built an d

run by sunshine Look anywhere you m ay
.

about the room : you can see n othing which does

n o t o w e its all to s un shine Sunshine even grew .

an d bleach ed this lovely whit e lunch cloth an d ,

g a ve th e p retty colors to your dr esses .

Countless indeed ar e the marvels connected

, ,

with the Sun but O f them all non e is more

,

astounding th an its v ast dist ance from us an d

its enormous size Astr onomers have determined

.

that miles of sp ace stretches between

us and the Lord of D ay But do you have an y .

ide a of this vast distance ? Suppose yo u try

to co unt P rofesso r B all says the
26 T H E SU N

best way will be to let the clock do this : H ow

long will the clock have to ti ck before it has
made as many ticks as there are miles between
the E arth an d the Sun ? Every minute the
clock of course makes Sixty ticks an d in twen ty
, , ,

four hours the total number will reach

By dividing this into you will find
that more th an days or nearly three years
, ,

will be r equired for the clo ck to perform the

task .

Again here is an other ill ustration : I t is

,

nearly miles round the world The .

j ourney can be accomplished in sixty days .

Traveling at this r ate one m an might make

,

j ourneys around the world while another

was covering the s ame distance between the
E ar th an d the Sun No m an of course coul d
.
, ,

accomplish this feat even if such a journey wer e

,

possible He would be 600 years old when he

.

re ached his destin ation even if he set out when

,

a mere b abe As another inst ance suppose

.
,

that a train had start ed for the Sun dur ,

ing the time of Cromwell traveling at the r at e

,

of forty miles an hour an d stopping n either

,

day nor night it woul d not yet h ave re ached its

,
 TH E SUN 27

destination I t wo uld require 2 65 years to co m

.

p lete the j ou r n ey a n d no, m an w ho sta rt ed o n

the tr ain coul d hope to be in at the finish The .

j ourney must be ended by his great great grand -

children .

N O less am azing th an the Sun s distance is

’

his Size Approximately his diam eter is 8 66

. ,

0 00 miles This means that 109 globes the Size

.

o f our E a rth set side by Side a cross the face of

,

the Sun would not quite cover it Again com

,
.
,
’

p aring the volume Of the Sun with that of the

E arth Professor Gregory gives the following
,

“
illustration : If we had a contract to build
U p this stupendous bulk and were to deliver
,

a load of the s ame size as the E arth every hour ,

the order could not be completed working night

”
an d day for 15 0 years .

Though the Sun is vastly greater than the

E arth in volume it weighs only , times
as much Thus the density of the E arth is about
.

four times that of the Sun T he reason of this .

is that the E arth is a solid glob e whil e the Sun ,

!

is a great glowing ball of inc andescent gas Nor .

is the force of gravity at the Sun s surface so

’

g re at as hi s im m en se m ass wo uld s ee m to ind i

28 THE S UN
cate : it is only twenty seven an d two thirds times
- -

as gr eat as gravity at the surface of the E arth

‘

A body woul d fall vertically 444 feet in the first

second An athlete a ttempting stunts o n the
.

Sun would find his movements hampered by a

bodily weight of pounds His run n ing
.

high jump if possible at all would not be over

, ,

three inches On the Sun the p endulum of an

.
,

ordinary clock would swing so rapidly that its

movements co uld scarcely be counted .

T he Sun is so constantly before us that we

do not often stop to consider the immense
amount of energy it is pouring forth every

second Astronomers h ave determined that the

.

Sun is immensely hotter th an a powerful electric

ar c light which m elts all kn own substan ces an d
-
,

scientists have puzzled not a little to account fo r

the work which this heat do es in the v ast region s
of sp ace ; for only the two billionth p art of it
-

reaches our E arth an d is used to support the life

O f cre atures here On its surface the sola r heat
.

has been estimated at Fahr enheit How .

shall we re alize this enormous heat ? From even

one square meter of this glowing surface eno ugh
heat is generated to supply ho rse p o wer -
,
 T HE SU N 29

i uously night an d day Further than this

co nt n .
,

“
Pro fes sor Young says : If we coul d build up
a so lid co lumn of ice fro m the E ar th to the Sun

two miles an d a quarter in diameter Sp anning ,

the in con ceivable abyss of miles an d ,

if the Sun sho uld co ncentr ate his power upon it ,

it would dissolve an d melt not in an hour not in

, ,

a minute but in a single second ; o n e swing of the

,

p endul u m an d it would be w at er sev en,mo r e an d

”
it wo uld be dissip ated in vapor Were the
.

Sun as n ear to us as the Moo n his powerful rays

,

wo uld n o t only quickly turn all the ocean to

vapor but the solid E arth itself would be speed
,

How do astronomers kn ow all this ? By

ex periments with burning gla sses mirrors an d
-
, ,

arc lights T he Sun s heat is determined by

’
-
.

opposing it to an electric arc an d measuring the

heat which both pro duce at different distances .

You may perhaps have started a camp fire by -

means of the Sun s r ays through a burning glass ;

’
-

o r perchan ce yo u may have seen a c annon co v

ered by a burn ing glass in such a way th at the

Sun s r ays to uched it o ff at the noon ho ur

’
.

So metimes o ne disco vers black spots o n leaves

30 THE S UN
that have been caused by the drops of dew act
ing as little burnin g glasses an d concentrating
the Sun s r ays It is an interesting exp eriment
’
.

to make a len s out of ice an d burn a piece o f

,

p ap er by mean s of Sun rays which h ave p assed

through such a cold body A mirror from an
.

old automobile r eflector is ideal fo r co n centr at

in g the Sun s r ays as its curved surface brin gs
’
,

the beams to a direct focus If the mirror is

.

large en ough an iron n ail wil l burn like a match

in the heat gen erated .

F rom exp erimen ts wi th large mirrors we ,

know th at the heat of the Sun must be cap able

of meltin g all known metals an d glass an d ,

por celain ; fo r the Sun must be even hotter than

the focu s of the l argest mirror we can construct ,

since a wall exposed to a blazing fire cannot b e

hotter than the fire itself With the Sun in the
.

” “
zen ith
, s ays Professor Todd his heat is power
,

f111 en ough to m elt annually a layer of ice o n

”
the earth n ear ly 2 00 feet in thickness .

T he time is coming when the wor ld s supp ly

’

— —
of bottled sunshine wood an d co al will have
dis app eared ; so th at within a century or tw o
“

, ,

n ew ways of furn ishin

g h eat an d
po wer mus t
32 T H E SU N

it at the least po ssible co st but it will co o k the

,

meals of the inmates run the se wing machine

,
-

an d the v acuum cleaner and in Short furn ish

,

p ower wh erever pow er is needed .

One of the great mysteries in regard to the

S un s heat is its con stancy It shines tod ay
’
.

just as intens ely as it did as far back as man

has an y record H o w is this enormous
.

heat kept up ? Cert ainl y it is n ot by the co mbus

tio n of car bon H ad the Sun been composed
.

of coal it must have bum ed out in less than five

thousand years And apparently the sun is
.

in his prime ! Scienti sts have decided that the

only real plausible theory for the S un s heat is ’

that he is contracting u pon himself If this be .

true he must have been vastly larger in the

,

remote p ast just as in the far distant future

,

he will be very much reduced in size It has .

been estimated th at the burning of gases in a co n

tr action o f his diameter of six miles per century
would fully account for his presen t heat At .

this rate it has been calcul ated that the Sun will
shrink to o ne half of its present diameter in five
-

million years While cer tain types of life would

.

disappear eno ugh heat and light would still be

,
 TH E S UN 33

em itted fo r an other five mill io n years But .

,

a fter that perio d the gla cial epoch woul d again

dawn an d presently the Sun an d his retinue

,

wo uld swin g Silently through sp ace as cold inert ,

lum ps of matter That there are many types of

.

such dead suns in the heavens is a f act well

known to astro no mers .

No less remarkable than the heat of the Sun

is his brightness The inten sity of sun light as
.
,

it is c alled has been c alculated as

, times
that of a candle 146 times that of a calcium
,

light an d nearly four times brighter than the

,

brightest electric arc light ; full moons

-

would b e ne eded to equ al the light of the Sun .

Absorption by the Sun s own atmosphere not ’

o nly r educes the amoun t of light which we

receive b ut changes its ch aracter

, A c r din g .

to Lan gley were it not fo r its atmosphere the

, ,

Sun wo u ld shine two or three times b r ighter

than it now does an d with the bluish color o f
,

the arc light -

.

Of course no one can look directly at the Sun ,

but by o bserving him with the aid of a tel

esco pe o r even through a d arkened glass
, we ,

beho ld first a disc of yello w light the —

34 THE SUN
p ho to sp her e stron o mers term it Lo okin g at
,
a .

this car efully we may no te that the brillian t

,

surface is m arked with da rk spo ts These are .

called sun spots But they are not permanent

-
.

features of the Sun like the mountains an d ,

cr aters are of the Moon They are o nly tem .

p o r ary m a rkings he r e to day perh

, aps an d -
go n e

to morrow Sometimes the Spots close up within

-
.

a few minutes an d fresh ones op en elsewh ere .

Again the whole surface seemes m ottled o ver

in a curious way .

What does it all mean ? Galileo an d Scheiner ,

the astr onomer s who first discovered this

pheno m en on could scarcely credit their senses
,
.

Surely the sun was too d azzlingly perfect to

Show defects such as the sunspots seem ed to
,

be ! At length however it was determined

, ,

th at the photosphere was merely the brilliant

en v elope o r light sp here of the sun an d th at the
-
,

dark Spots were in truth great ren ts or holes in

the glowing envelop e through which the core of,

the Sun w as s een Shortly by means of the

.
,

sun spots , astr on omer s were assured that the

Sun like the E arth rot ates on its a xis
, , But .

“ ”
the day of the Sun is twenty five an d one -
 TH E SUN 35

quar ter times lo nger than that of our planet .

Ano ther interestin g fact is that the sunspots in

crease an d decrease about every eleven years .

Incredible as it m ay seem the discovery of this

,

so lar cycle as the incre a se an d d ecre as e of the

,

sunspots is called was m ade by a mere am ateur

,

in astrono my whose only instrument was a hand

,

telescope ! In 1 8 2 6 ,a German apothecary

n am ed S chwabe who had been interesting him
,

self in the h eavens comm enc ed to count the n um

,

ber o f spots on the sun as seen fr om day to day .

After about twenty years had p assed he began ,

to feel sure that there was a p eriodic increa se an d

decrease of the sunspots and by 1 8 5 1 he had
,

triumphantly pro ved the existen ce o f the solar

—
cycle an M p o rtant fact th at had escaped the
observ ation o f all the noted astr on omer s To .

day it is known th at when the sunspots ar e

most numer ous the au r ora borealis is the most
frequen t an d vivid ; at this time too the p resence
, ,

of magnetic disturb ances is noted in the fluctua

tions of the delicately mounted magnetic needles
at Greenwich an d in v arious oth er observ atori es .

The largest sunspo t on record covered about one

thir ty fifth of the whole sun This occurred in
-
.
36 T H E SU N

1 85 8 . February 1892 an o ther huge spo t

In , ,

appear ed some , mile s in length and 62 ,

000 miles wide Closely connected with this

.

huge gap in the photosphere were a n umber o f

smaller spo ts in all making a rent that seventy
,

bo dies of the diameter of our E arth would have

been requir ed to patch .

B esides the sun spo ts the telesco pe reveals an

,

o ther decidedly interestin fe ature the b ight

g o n r

surface of the Sun This is the ap pearance o f

.

brighter streaks or ridges called the faculw and

, ,

wholly as irresponsible an d notio nate as the sun

spots whose neighbo rho o d they seem to frequent .

Often it is impossible to sketch their form so ,

quickly do they appe ar an d disap pear Some .

astronomers b elieve them to be elev ated p eaks of

luminous matter extending thousan ds of mile s

above the ga s eous plain Some are evidently
.

compos ed of clouds of incandescent calcium an ,

elemen t which exists freely in the Sun As a .

rule sunspots are usu ally confi n ed to the two

,

zones abo ve an d below the solar equator while ,

the faculae are often found well distributed o ver

“ ”
the S un s surface excepting in the po lar
’
,

regions .
38 THE SUN
These d ates ar e regularly pu blished in the
N autical Almanacs u sed by the English
, ,

French German an d Am erican governments

, , ,

an d natur ally at each occurr ence even though

, ,

they must j ourney half way around the world -

,

representatives fr om every observatory ar e on

han d with a very definite idea of just what they
,

want to accomplish in the few seconds or ,

perhaps momen ts of the exhibition Very

, .

carefully you m ay b e sur e are all the d et ails

, ,

rehearsed b eforehand t ime an d again that there

, ,

m ay b e the most accurate observ ation In 19 5 5 .

( Luzo n
) an d 19 7 3 ( S ah ar a ) will b e two gre a t
total eclipses of s even an d o n e half minutes -
’

duration the lon gest fo r a thousand years

,
.

T he promin en c es or r ed flames which were

, ,

first to be seen onl y at eclipse d ates are now , ,

h appily to be observed almost an y time But

,
.

they are not to be seen through even the mo st

powerful of t elescopes You must c all into .

service one of those in genious oft mentioned -

—
con trivances called a sp ectroscop e an in stru
ment which is no more nor les s than a special
kind of a glass prism By this means the .

p rominen ces ar e shown to be tongues of glowing

 THE SU N 39

fire shot forth with tremendous power from the

chro mo sp h r
e e— a n irr eg ul ar rose tinte d fringe -
,

varying from five to ten thousand miles in width ,

which completely en circles the sun formin g its ,

second envelop e M any of thes e prominences

.

are of enormous height ranging from an ,

aver age of —
miles about the circum
—
ference of the E arth to 35 miles nearly ,

half of the Sun s diameter ’

Like the sun spots
.
,

the prominences increa se a n d decreas e every

eleven years Their v ar iety of color shows them

.

to be the gaseous vapor of various well known -

metals chiefly calcium ( fi ery red ) an d iro n ( dark

,
-

co lored D ily phot gr phs Sun s

) h
’
. a o a O f t e

promin ences are t aken in v arious observator ies ,

but esp ecially is this a feature at the C arn egie

Solar Observatory in C aliforn i a Two forms of .

prominences are known : br illiant eruptive j ets

a n d cloud like wide sp readin g sh ap es
- -
.

F ew p eople who look up at the ar c lights -

which illumin at e most of our city streets give

an y thought to how interesting an d myster ious

that light is W e know that it is the n earest

.

thing po ssible to dir ect sunlight ; in truth the

arc light is re all y the S un s own imitation of
’
-
40 THE SUN
himself Thousan ds of ye ars ago the Sun s
.
’

energy wa s p acked deep in the co al mines of the

earth. To day m an has unearthed this treasure

-

an d turned it into carbo n rods which have again ,

been led to p roduce the light an d heat which the

’
Sun sto red up eons ago By the aid of the S un s
.

own bottled energy miraculous as it m ay seem

, ,

we have measured his h eat Through the me .

dium of the mul ti useful spectroscop e we have

-

watched various substances burn in the arc until

their gaseous color is familiar on sight By .

applying this s ame knowledge to the colors

observed in the Sun s sp ectrum we have been

’

able to determine of what the Sun is m ade .

So far abo ut forty elements are known to exist

in the Sun Strangely eno ugh too some
.
, ,

elements were known in the day s bright o rb

’

long before they were found on o ur sphere :

helium an d coronium are two of these Iron .
,

hydrogen calcium n ickel an d sodium are the

, , ,

most abundant of the Sun s elements ’

.

Of what lies belo w the Sun s photosphere in ’

,

the center of his mighty orb we can form no ,

“
co nception A ccording to o ne astronomer T he
.
,
 T H E SU N 41

pressure within the Sun is equally unconceivable .

A canno n ball weighing 100 pounds on earth

would weigh pounds on the Sun Thus .

a mighty conflict goes on unce asingly between

imprisoned an d exp anding gases an d vapors

struggling to burst out an d massive pressures
,

T his then is our Sun the center of the solar

, , ,

system the great Fountain of Light to which we

, ,

on E arth owe all that we have Besides our .

E arth there are seven planets of considerable

size an d a whole host of insignificant little ones
,

which depend upon the Sun They all revolve .

about him an d d erive their light an d he at from

,

his beam s . In a go od many ways these plan et s

resemble the E arth One of them Ven us is
.
, ,

about the s ame size Mercury an d M ars are

.

much smaller but Jupiter S aturn Uranus an d

, , , ,

Neptune are a great deal larger T he nearest .

of these is millions of miles away an d natur ally ,

but little is kn own concernin g them though ,

people have known of their existence for ages .

T he ancients named the days of the week from

these seven celes tial bodies .
42 TH E S U N

Yo u will perhaps like to m ake a dr awing

of
our planetary system in o rder to , give yours elf
an idea of how it appe ars .

In order to draw the inner p art of the solar

system to scale take a piece of blank p ap er at
,

least ten inches square In the center set up o n e

.

leg o f a drawing comp ass open the other leg o n e

,

inch an d describe a circle T he centr al dot

, .
,

which can be enl arged is of course the Sun , , .

T he first orbit thus described is th at o f Mercury ,

“
an d can b e so m arked with 8 8 d ays set down
,

for the year or time to co mplete the circle T he

, .

comp ass should next be opened o ne an d thr ee

quarters inches fro m the center an d this circle
, ,

will r epresent the o rbit of Ven us 2 2 5 d ays The , .

third circle with a radius of t wo an d o ne half -

inches is that of our own E arth 365 days T he , .

fo urth circle with a r adius of four in ches is

, ,

M ars 68 7 days This completes the inner solar

, .

system A very much larger piece of pa p er

.

wo ul d b e required to describe the o rbits of the

fo ur outer planets .

'
M ercury is m il es fr om the Sun .

T he E arth is m iles T he great .

planets Jupiter S atur n an d Uranus are much

,
 M O T H E R E A RT H , A R
C H I P F O M T HE
SU N -
STAR
O UR E arth which the ancients thought held
,

such an importan t position in the Universe has ,

“
now been proven on ly a tiny grain of s and in the
”
ocean of Infi nity . But even so it still remains,

the spot of the utmo st int erest to us an d no p art ,

of astron omy is mo re fascin ating than that

branch which answers the query W hat is the ,

E arth ?
In its e arliest stage the E arth was probably
,

whirled like a chip from the great mass of star

stuff of which the Sun was b eing made It was .

merely a chaotic nebula of gaseo us formation ,

“ ”
without form an d void as the writer Of the
,

“
Book of Genesis sets forth Then God said .
, ,

”
L et there be light ; an d there was light But
‘ ’
.

this light did not come from the Sun says ,

science ; in its e arly days the E arth was self

luminous light came from the slow contraction
,

o f the nebulo us m ass By an d by as the heated

.
,
 MOTHER E AR TH 45

mass went o n whirlin g keeping always in a

,

certain p ath or orbit around the Sun it slowed ,

down a bit an d b egan to cool o ff an d a crust

formed over its liquid surface just as ice forms ,

when water freezes Then some of the gases

.

formed clouds an d these were later cooled an d

,

co ndensed in to water which settled b ack in the

,

harden ed shallows an d ba sins made by the still ,

coolin g mass to form seas an d rivers Others

, .

of the gases became air an d so after some , ,

millions of year s the earth began to be a fit

,

p lace for cert ain forms of life But it was .

excessiv ely moist yet an d the light w as onl y

,

the semi twilight of deep shad e for the dense

-
,

cloud m asses Shut o ff all the rays from the Sun ,

an d the light an d w armth wer e still supplied by

the heated E ar th Ferns an d plants o f like

.

nature sprang up an d grew to the height of trees ,

covering the lan d with luxuriant vegetatio n .

A n d still the contraction an d vaporization went

on over an E arth which was continuous an d
equ al in clim ate everywhere Not yet had the
.

seas o ns begun ; no outer Universe was visible .

“
A n d now G o d s aid : Let there be lights in
the firmament of the h eaven to divi de the day
46 MOTHER E A RTH
from the night ; and let them be for signs an d ,

for seasons an d fo r days an d years And let

, ,
.

them be for lights in the firm am ent o f the

heavens to give light upon the earth ; and it
,

was so For now the heavy clouds of vapor

lifted the skies cleared an d the Sun shone in
, ,

bringing with him a rich heritage of ben eficen ce .

Now a new race of plants an d animals came

into being ; the earth blo ssomed with loveliness ,

an d the real histo ry o f the world b egan .

Almost in the b eginning too men began to , ,

question one ano ther What is the E arth ?

.

And as we have seen for long they fan cied it

,

o n e v ast i llimit able plain Gradually however

.
, ,

it was borne in upon them that the E arth was a

great b all or sphere Then came another b af
.

“
fling query ; If the E arth is a sphere how is ,

”
it support ed in sp ace ? The sky they sup ,

posed was a vast holl ow sphere or rim above

, , ,

which dwelt the gods Might there not be

.

another rim belo w the E arth on which gr ea t

pillars were placed to hold it in position ? Some

nations pictured a giant m an who held the E arth
on his shoulders ; o thers fancied it upheld by
various mythical anima ls of enormous stature .
 M O T H ER EART H 47

Some su pport in the minds of the ancien ts

, ,

”
was absolut ely necess ary s ays M acpherson , .

“
T he author of the Book of Job however had , ,

grasped the truth fo r writin g of the power of

, ,

the Creator he s ays H e h an geth the E arth

‘
, ,

upon nothin g This we now know to be liter

.
’

ally tru e
.

Aristotle taught that the E arth was a globe

suspen ded in sp ace It w as too the cen ter of
.
, ,

the Univers e aroun d which the Sun Moon an d

, , ,

stars revolved But pr es en tly a n ew p roblem

.

a rose to complicate ma tt ers Atten tive o b serv .

ers of the heaven s n o w began to b e aware of

fi ve bright stars which s eemed to move in an
irregular manner ro un d the heaven s keeping ,

clos e to the p ath which they fan cied the Sun

foll owed However th ere w as good reason to

.
,

susp ect th at these obj ects were n o t st ars an d ,

shortly the Greeks named them planets this ,

“ ”
being their term for wanderers E ach o n e of .

these planets seem ed differ ent fr om the others .

O n e the br ightest of a ll shon e with such a soft

, , ,

gen tle light that they named it Venus after their

goddess o f love Moreover they noticed that
.

Venus never mo ved far fro m the Sun an d that ,

48 M OTHE R EART H

they never saw it on a re ally d ark sky And .

presently they ascertained that Venus was

so metimes visible as evening star an d again at ,

an other s eas o n of the y ear a s morning star .

“ ”
Another planet the sp arkl ing o n e kept even
, ,

closer to the Sun than Venus an d so they called ,

“
it Mercury the messen ger of the gods
, An
other o f the planets the golden o n e they ,
‘
,

called Jupiter after their o wn marvelous deity

, ,

because it seemed mightier than the others an d ,

instead of keeping close to the Sun swept ,

maj estically r ound the entire heavens One o f .

a fiery color which wax ed exceedingly bright

, ,

then waned they christened M ars after their

, ,

god of war And last of all an d fainter than

.
,

an y a dull yellowish slow m oving plan et which

, ,
-
,

crept around the heavens o nly once in thirty

years was called S aturn a fter their god of time
, ,
.

But how were the paths of these plan ets to be

explain ed ?
Such a complicated theory as presently arose !
to the effect that the Sun Moon an d planets ,

moved in circles an d that the center o f these

,

circles revolved round the E arth in larger

circles It was fostered by P tolemy the
.
,
 MOTHER E AR TH 49

Egyptian astronomer an d for over

, years
it held sway . Nobody rightly understood it ,

but they had no better solution to offer T he .

theory of the spheres wa s an astron omical

mystery too stupendous for an y clear explana

tio n But at length rose o n e Nicolaus
.
,

Copernicus who did not believe even what

,

littl e he understood of the spherical theory .

Nature always did things in the simplest easiest ,

manner possible he argued an d surely there

, ,

was a plain explan ation for the system of the

Copernicus was only nineteen when he began

to study the subject H e was brave en ough to
.

do his own thinking an d to strike out in p aths

for himself but he did n o t dare to publish the
,

—
theory which he presently envolved that the
S a n was the cen ter of the Univers e an d that
,

the E arth an d the planets revolved around it ,

while the Moon revolved around the E arth .

Surely no Simpler a ccounting could be had an d ,

the few gre at m en of science who heard the

Co pernican theory longed to accept it They .

felt perfectly assured o f its truth But those

.

were days o f bitter prej udice .T he Ro man

50 MOTHER EARTH
C atholic chur ch had adopted Ptolemy s version ; ’

an
y oth er w o uld b e d eclared impious Cop er .

n icu s w a s an o ld m an s eventy years of a e an d

, g ,

on his death bed when his book came out

-
,

proclaiming his solar theory Bruno was .

burn ed alive for at on ce adopting it Galileo .

an d K epler , the foremost a stronomers r an a ,

gamut of p ersecution s but the two bravely

,

threw their whole souls into the effort to prove

the question ed poin ts which Copernicus had

left Shortly then the fact was establish ed

.
, ,

b eyon d a doubt that the E arth w as merely a

plan et a member of the Sun s great system of
,
’

worlds .

But thi s theory on ly presented another prob

lem . If the E arth wa s whirlin g around the Sun
at the t errific sp eed of eight een m il es p er second ,

a s w as cl aim ed ,an d w a s a lso turn ing on its

o w n a xi s on ce in twenty four hours how could

-
,

O b ect s st ay on the E arth ? How w it th t

j a s a

the p eople did n o t fall o ff Moreover if we ,

were rushing alon g at the great r ate o f over

m il es p er hour why were we not cons cious
,

of motion ?
It was Sir Isaac Newton who answered these
52 MOT HER EARTH
it will move forward in a straight line with nu ,

chan ging speed forever Thus the Moon in its

, .
,

j ourney around the E arth an d the planets in

,

their cour se about the Sun are each affected ,

by the greater attraction of the larger b o dy but ,

their own tendency to move in a straight lin e

keeps them ever struggling outward Hence .
,

all the he avenly bodies in our solar system keep

movin g in an ellipse or flattened circle around

, ,

an d around their own grea t center of attraction .

Astr on omers call the motion of a planet on its

a xis the turning motio n an d its motion around
-
,

the Sun the flyin g motion T he reason we do

-
.

not realize the enormous sp eed at which we are

travelin g as the E arth rushes around its annual
,

orbit o f over m iles is because the ,

world is all traveling together an d with such ,

case an d fr eedom from j olt th a t the motion is

not noticed .

In swin ging around its appointed orbit the ,

E arth do es not st and up straight but its ax is ,

points to the north star ca usin g what is known

,

a s the in clina tio n o f the E ar th s a xi s an d this

’

inclination an d the motions of the E arth ar e

the talism ans which account for certain of the
 MOTHER E AR T H 53

—
mysteries which puzzled the anci ents day an d

night , s easons twilight the midn ight sun

the , , ,

an d the lon g pol ar n ight The fir st of th ese

.

phenomena day an d night is caused by the

, ,

E arth turning on its axi s every twen ty four -

hours ; thus the light of the sun strikes one half -

of its surface at a time making day on that,

side while the other side which is in shadow

, , ,

has night Owin g to the fact that the E arth

.

is surrounded by a great rim of atmo sphere ,

d aylight does not disapp ear the mo ment the Sun

“
sets that is goes below the horiz on ; for his
,

rays still strike the upper regions of the at

m o sphere an d thus we h ave a twilight gradually
,

deepening into even ing tide an d on to the tot al

-

darkening of the sky If the E arth stood

.

str aight it is ea sy to see that the d ays an d nights

,

all ov er the world would b e of the s ame

—
length twelve hour s each Instead the in
, .
,

clin atio n of its axis is twen ty thr e e an d one -

h alf degrees from the perp en dicular W hile at .

the poles we have o n e day an d o n e night each

six months in length .

For a few days at the summ er solstice the ,

wondrous phenomenon of the Midn ight Sun

54 MOTHER EARTH
a ttracts many visitors to the norther n p arts o f
Norway Russia an d Sweden
, , .

It is hard to set down in cold print a picture of

this glo rious spectacle T he radi ance of the Sun
.

var ies in intensity at different hours of the day ,

an d on di ffer ent d ays d ep ending upon the mo is

,

ture or clarity of the atmosphere presence of ,

clouds an d other factors One day it will be as

, .

red as orange an d so dull in r adi an ce it can be

,

beheld with the naked eye At another time it .

burns with the vivid glow of li ve flame Again .

there are days at a time when it has a bluish

white appearance almo st like the Moo n
, .

But the mo st curious effect of all is the motion

,

“ ” “ ”
itself It does not rise or set as is app ar ent
.

with us of s o uthern climes When o n e nears the .

North P o le there is no E ast or West or North .

Ev ery direction in which we look is due south .

T he Sun ther efo re app arently moves ro und an d

, ,

round us in a gigantic circle roughly p arallel to

the horizo n G raduall y it descends in a slow
.

spiral until it gr azes the horizon like a huge ,

cartwheel turnin g con st antly to hem us about .

—
Next the cartwheel is cut in half then on ly the
upper segment shows This di sapp ears an d .
,
 MOTHER EARTH 55

a fter a period of twilight the long Arctic night

,

sets in The return of spring is just the reverse

.

—
of this phen omenon first the twil ight then a
,

faint rim of light crawlin g round an d round the

edge of the lan dscape makin g complete circles
, ,

until fin ally the orb of day ascen ds his throne

again .

The rotation o f the E arth on its axis furnishes

a natur al unit for the measur em en t of time .

Two days are recognized : the sidereal day an d

“ ”
the m ean so lar day . The fir st is the day
u sed by astron omers an d is ab solut ely exa ct
, .

I t is the time required for the rotation of the

E arth s axis as measured by the stars It is
‘ ’
.

calculat ed by choosin g some particular st ar

“ ”
Bet a C assiopeia the right pointer at the top
,

of the letter W formed by the con stellation of

— “
C assiop ei a is the Green wich of the Sky ”

an d counting the ex act tim e r equired for the

star to move from the meridi an round to the

meridian again But on ly an astron om er can

.

“ “
manage the juggling n ecess ary to keep day
”
light time by the sid ereal clock T he reason
.

is that because of the motion of the E arth the

, ,

Sun app ears to come to the meridian four

56 MO T HER E AR T H
minutes later each day by sidereal time This .

means that the day measured by the Sun is four

minutes longer than the day measured by the
stars an d in a year the difference amounts to
,

a whole day s time Sidereal time wo uld not do

’
.

“
for the average unit o f reckoning : Sidereal
” “
noon says o n e as tronomer comes at all hours
, ,

of the day an d night dur ing the progress o f the

year Plainly then sidereal time is no t a fit
.
, ,

standard for r egulating the a ffa irs o f o rdinary

life ; for while it would answ er very w ell for

,

a fortnight o r so the di spl acement of four

,

minutes daily would in six months have all the

world breakfas ting a fter sunset stayin g awake ,

all through the night an d going to b ed in the

,

”
middle of the fo ren o o n Nor can the difficulty
.

b e altogether solved by taking an y o n e solar

day instead of the sidereal for measur ement fo r ,

the Sun s app arent motion is bes et with irregul ar

’

ities M easur ed from meridian to meridi an

.

throughout the year the solar days vary in ,

lengths by many seconds It is necessary then .

, ,

to find the average length of the total numb er of

app a rent solar days in the transit around the

Sun an d this unit called the mean so lar day is

, , ,
 MO T H E R E ART H 57

the comm on me asure of time by which all the ,

clocks a n d watches in common use are regulated .

The rotation of the E arth causing sunr ise ,

an d suns et
, also suggests a n atur al system of

est ablishing directions W e have the c ardinal

.

points east an d west north an d south an d their

, , ,

divisio ns ; we also have meridians an d p arallels ,

by which latitude an d longitu de are measured .

Land surveys by which boundary lines of real

,

est ate ar e marked make constant refer ence to

,

the ca rdin al points ; boun d ary lines between

stat es an d nation s are usually defined by m er

idian s an d p arallels Navigators have daily
.

occasion to determine their position with respect

to certain meridians an d p arallels to keep on
in their desired route In order that standard
.

time m ay be kept throughout our country the ,

United States is divided in to four time sections ,

each o f which uses the m ean sola r tim e of its

stan dard meridian These m eridians ar e ex actly

.

fifteen degrees or o n e hour of time ap art

, , .

People tr aveling eastward across the United

States advance their watches o n e hour on cross
ing each of these st and ard meridians ; going
westward the time must o f course be turn ed
, ,
58 MO T H E R E ARTH
backward on e ho ur at each meridian T hese .

facts give r ise to a num ber O f interestin g pro b

lems ex amples of which may be found in an y
,

text on arithmetic Here is o n e selected at r an

.

dom : It is now 9 P M Tuesday April 1 0 . .

, ,

18 7 6 at Ann Arbo r Michigan ; ov er wh at p a rt

, ,

of the E arth is it Tuesday an d what day of the ,

week is it o ver the remainder of the globe ? T he

answer is : It is Tuesday b ack to the east till
we reach the po int where it is midnight as

it is now 9 P M back
. .
, an d Tu esd ay west

till we reach the l 8 oth meridian B etween the .

”
18 0th meridian an d longitude 5 1 9 1 2 e ast
° ’

it is Wednesday .

At midnight o n Monday night at Greenwich ,

E n glan d, it is Mond ay all the way b ack to the

east to the l 8 oth meridi an an d Tuesda y all the
,

w ay forward to the w est to the s ame meridi an .

At the instant the midnight meridi an co incid es

with the 18 0th all the E arth has the s ame d at e
,

day . In travelin g eastward a round the glob e we ,

gain a whole day ; an d vice versa goin g west -

,

war d we lose a day For con ven ien ce there

, .
,

has been established in mid oc ean closely follow -

,

ing the l 8 oth meridi an from Greenwich an ,

60 MOTHER E AR T H
every twig until the whole country is enveloped
in a soft haze to p alest green an d red gray ,

”
an d yellow In the southern hemisphere au
.

tumn has come an d unm ist akable sign s show that

,

winter is on the wing Con tinuing on in its .

orbit the E arth arrives at B the summer solstice , ,

June 2 1 Now it will be noted the entire regi on

.
, ,

within the Arctic Circle is in daylight while ,

the region at the opposi te en d of the E arth is

in darkness Now too as the great circle o f

.
, ,

illumination p asses beyond the North Pole the ,

days in the northern h emisphere constantly in

crease in length an d on Jun e 22 is registered
,

the longest day an d the Shortest night of the

year On the other hand the opposite con di

.
,

tions prevail in the southern hemisphere A s .

the E arth traverses from A to B the days grow

con stantly Shorter an d the nights longer T he .

increased length of day in the northern b emis

here of course brings the conditio ns of sum
p , ,

m er ; while the sho rtening day in the southern

h emisphere brin gs wint er s ice an d chill When ’
.

the Sun re aches C at the autumnal equinox

, ,

September 22 the S un s rays again fall directly

,
’

upon the equator an d the great circle o f illum

 MOTHER E AR TH 61

in atio n p asses through the poles ; thus once

more the days an d nights are equal Now in .
,

the northern h emisphere the summer s eason

p ass es into autumn an d in the southlands spring

,

succeeds winter! At D the South Pole now

,

enj oys the Midnight Sun wh il e the North Pole

,

is enshrouded in the gloom of the Polar Night .

Likewise too the southern hemisphere is hav

, ,

in g summer ; while our p art of the h emisph ere

has arr ived at the winter solstice or D ecemb er
,

2 2 the d ate of the sho rtest day an d the lon gest

,

night Now our p art of the earth is tilted at its

.

greatest angle away from the Sun Now the .

trees stand dormant their sap withdrawn far

,

into their roots until the cold sh all abate ; the

leaden skies swirl with snowfl akes an d all the
E arth is hidden under a man tle of white But .

now the world no longer trembles with fear

lest these conditions prevail : we know that the
Frost Giant s can not long conquer th at ,

“ ”
presently the South Win d the summer maker ,
-
,

will come unlocking all fastn esses by his m agic

,

breath .

It is a well known fact that cold is apt to

-

actually increase fo r a month a fter the Sun has

62 MOTHER E A RT H
turned northward Consider what it would
.

mean if there were to be a permanent withdrawal

of even a slight amount of the Sun s warmth : ’

our E arth wo uld freeze into perp etual winter .

Again a slight tilt o f our ax is might turn into

,

Arctic regions thos e belts where the glory of sum

m er now reigns in its turn But nothing is more
.

stable than the laws of the Universe ; all changes

of movement an d direction are slow an d gradual ,

an d we need not appr eh end an y ch an ge from

the familiar variation of seasons at l east not for ,

an y p eriod of time within the a ppreci able gra sp

of m an In late January when the Sun

.
,

has lon g been climbing steadil y on his northern

route we b egin to take note of the lengthening
,

days but the E arth has arrived b ack to the

,

vern al equinox ere the astronomers whys an d

wherefores p ale before th at mysterious thrill

E very clo d feels a stir o f might ,

An i sti ct w ith in it whi ch each es an d to wers

n n r ,

An d gr o pin g blin dly bo ve it fo r light

a ,

C limbs to l in the gras s

a so u an d fl o w ers .

E arth is made up of a vast number

T he
elements an d its whole mas s is e stimated
,
 MOT H E R E A RT H 63

six thousand millions of millions of millions of

tons This is an al together incomprehensible
.

term Perhaps we Shall co nvey a better idea

.

if we state that the average weight of the e arth

is about 35 0 pounds per cubic foot A cubic .

mile will therefore weigh in the n eighborhood

, ,

of gross tons The earth is n o t

.

quite a perfect sphere due no doubt to its

,

centrifugal force when in a molten state Its .

longest diameter is nearly miles an d its ,

shortest di ameter nearly miles ; its average

diameter then is miles Its average cir .

cum feren ce is c alculat ed as miles an d ,

the area of its surface is of square

miles It has a solid crust but there has been
.
,

much difl eren ce of opinion as to the composition

’

of its center Al l early astronomers considered

.

this to b e a molten mass ; later a theory was

put forward that the interior of the earth w as
in all probability a gaseo us mass the existence ,

of volcanoes an d hot springs being cited as proo f

of this suppositio n .

O n e writer s ays : In recent years the as

tro n o mer an d physicist h ave coll ected evidence ,

which is as conclusive as such evidence can be ,

64 MO T HER E A RT H
that the E arth is solid from center to surface ,

an d even more rigid th an a similar m ass of

steel Lord Kelvin shows that if the E arth

.

were a fluid surr ounded by a crust the action ,

of the Moon would not cause tides in the ocean ,

but would merely tend to stretch out the entire

E arth in the direction of the Moon leavin g the ,

relative positions of the crust an d the water

”
unchanged .

Measurement of the temperatures in wells

an d deep m in es shows th at the average incre ase

of temp erature downwards is about one degree

for every six ty feet Down tw enty five or
.
-

one hundred miles we should n aturally expect to

-

find a very high temperature ; indeed we know

that this is true from the melt ed lava that rises
an d escap es from volcano es N ewcomb how .
,

“
ever s ays :
, The matter o f the in terior of the
E arth is kept solid by the enormo us pressure .

Thus as we increase the temp erature we have

,

only to in crease the pressure also to keep the

material of the E arth solid And thus it is .
,

as we descend into the E arth the increa se o f ,

pressure more than keeps p ace with the rise of

1 “
Astronomy d
fo r E veryb o y,
”
N cwcomb .
so MOTHER E A RTH
in a few hours if oxygen is withheld In sho rt
, .
,

without the atmosphere the E arth would soon

,

stand as dry an d barren as the Moon a dea d

,

an d burned out world whirling aimlessly on in

-
,

the ceas eless path from which it can never esc ape
so long as the Sun holds over his realms.
 S OM E T HIN G AB OUT T HE O THE R P LAN E T S

“
IFthe comp arison were not offensive to the
”
Sun go d says one of the well versed astro n
-
,
-

omers we might say that he is like a spid er at

,

the center of his web In the n et of his at

.

traction worlds are sustained Relatively to his .

magnitude an d might the planets are but thys

,

”
Spinn ing round him Yet we cannot realize
.

the tot al extent of our solar system without

a stu dy of the marvelous a rray of pl an ets an d

satellites asteroids comets an d meteors which

, , ,

revolve around o ur orb of day .

The planets naturally divide into two well

defined groups of four bodies each : the inner
an d the o u ter planets sep arated by the ring
,

or circle of a third group called the asteroids or

min or planets In the first division ranging
.
,

from thirty six to o ne hundr ed forty one millions

- - - -

of miles from the Sun are Mercury Venus the

, , ,

67
68 THE OTHER PLANETS
E arth an d Mars N ext comes the 9 00 or
, .

more asteroids the largest of which is not quite

,

—
5 00 miles in diameter less th an the mean

length of the stat e of T ex as In the outer group .

are the planets Jupiter S aturn Uranus a n d

, , ,

N eptun e at a range varying from 48 2 to

,

mill ions o f mil es To remember the arrange

.

ment of the planets in relation to the Sun here is ,

a sentence the first letters of ea ch word of which

,

furnish the key to the name of the planet

MEN VE RY E ARLY M AD E J ARS SE RVE U SE FU L N E E DS

It means little to say that an y one of the plan ets
is a certain number of mill ion m iles from
the Sun W e need a concrete ex am m
. e: H ere
“
is o n e as set forth by M acpherson :
, If we t ake
a nin e foot glob e to r epresent the Sun w e m ay
-
,

r epresent M ercury by a large pea at a distance

of 12 7 yards ; Venus by a o n e in ch b all at 2 35 -

yards ; the E arth by a o n e inch ball at 32 5 -

yards ; M ars by a half inch marble at 495 -

yar ds ; the as teroids by 9 00 sm all seeds at dis

tances from 67 6 to yard s Jupiter will b e .

represented by an eleven inch globe a mile away ;

-

S aturn by a nine inch globe o n e an d three

-
 T HE OTHER PLANETS 69

fou th miles w y ; Uranus by a fo urteen inch

r a a -

globe five an d one half miles away On this

-
.

scale we can represent the Moon as a p ea moving

in a circle at a dist ance of thirty inch es from the
ball one inch in diameter which represents the
, ,

”
E arth .

T a ble S ho wing A ctual D ia meter o f the P la nets

I nn er p lan et s M ercury 30 30 m il es
V en us 7 7 99
E arth 7 9 13
M ars 4 2 30

The Astero ids , Fr o m 50 0 to 10 mil es

O uter plan ets : J upiter m iles

S aturn
U ran us
N eptun e
F rom the above it will be noted that the
inner planets are very much less in size th an
those in the outer circles an d that the asteroids
,

“ ”
are often chips of such small magnitu de as to
be scarcely worth counting Indeed the three .
,

groups ar e compl etely di ffer ent not only in si ze

an d dist anc e but in physical c o ndition More .

over certain O f the planets are themselv es the

,

centers of p articul ar little f amilies of moons or

satellites o f their own Mercury an d Venus

.
70 THE OTHER PLANETS
have none Indeed only two of the inn er planets
.

have satellites W e all know the E arth s sat

.
’

ellite the Moon

, M ars has two satellites but
.
,

both of these are smaller than o ur Moon A ll .

the outer plan ets have an imposing circle of

att end an ts Jupiter has no less than nine

.

moons four large an d five small S aturn has

, .

ten attendants an d a meteoric ring somewhat

r esembling small asteroids : Tit an the lar gest ,

of these satellites exceeds the planet Mercury

,

in size while the small est are under thirty miles

,

in diameter Uranus has four satellites Nep

. .

tune so far as we kno w has but one All of

, , .

the p aths or orbits of the planets lie in the s ame

plan e as the Sun but all do not j ourn ey about

,

him at the same rate of speed as their velocity ,

dep ends on their nearness to power of attrae

tion .

Velo cities Of the P lan e ts

seco n d mi les p er
72 THE OTHER P L ANETS
world ) There is ho wever absolutely no dan
. , ,

ge r of a collision The pl a nets ar e all

. going
the s ame w ay an d are sep arated by enormous
,

distances M ars an d the E arth at their nearest

.
,

app r o ach are, miles distan t whil e ,

“ ”
Venus our nearest neighbor is
miles o ut in sp ace .

Of course as the planets travel at different

,

sp eed an d are placed at difi eren t distances their

,
’
,

p ath or orbit aroun d the Sun is traversed in

different time Thus M ercury being the near
.
, ,

est o f all to the Sun has a much sm all er ellipse,

to travel ; it therefore goes much more swiftly

ar o und its o rbit accomplishing its journey in
,

comp ar atively short order .

P erio d o f P la neta ry Revo lutio n

M ercury 88 d ays J upiter n ea rly 12 years

Ven us 225 S atu
rn 30
h
E a rt 36 5 U ran us 84
M ars 687 N ep tun e 16 5

It will be seen that our year o f time as an

element in the solar system is a very elastic
quan tity dep ending entirely on the dist ance
,

of a pl anet from the Sun As o n e writer most .

cleverly points out : A being who had lived ‘

 TH E OTHER P LA NETS 73

y twenty fo ur terrestrial years would be a

o nl -

centen arian on Mercury whil e the m an of

,

eighty four o n o ur planet would be an infant

-

of one year according to the len gth of years on

”
the planet Uranus .

Here is an experiment which will sho w the

'

double motion of a planet revolving on its own

axis an d on its ann ua l p ath around the sun .

T ake an ordinary dinner plate an d half an egg

shell Moisten the rim of the plat e an d set the
.

eg
g sh ell spinning on it By tilti n g the pl ate
.

a trifl e the egg Sh ell will revolve in two dirce

,

tions : first o n its own axis an d secon d aroun d

, , ,

the rim o f the plat e which corresponds to the

,

ann ua l orbit of a planet on its course about the

Sun .

No less remarkable than our unit of time in

various p arts o f the solar system is that of our
measure of weight On the E arth the weight
.

of an article is the force with which the E arth s ’

mass attracts that body Therefore as the .

,

masses of the planets vary a body mu st h ave ,

different weights in accordance with the plan et

on which it is weighed For ex ample a m an
.
,

who weighs 165 poun ds on the E arth would

74 THE OTHER P LANETS
weigh over two tons on the Sun To express it .

differently if you could take a one pound weight

,
-

an d tr an sfer it to the Sun it would weigh twenty ,

seven pounds there If you should try to raise .

your hat you would find it weighed as much as a

,

bucket of water on your head In fact you .

,

would hardly be able to lift your arms alone

that far as they would hang like lumps of lead
,

agains t your body A n d if you stoop ed to tie

.

your shoe you would be un able to lift your hun

,

dred s of p o unds of weight again .

Mac pherson further explain ing this question

,

of weight says that a man weighing twelve

,

stone on o ur world would weigh twen ty eight

1 -

stone o r! Jupiter fourteen ston e on S aturn , ,

ten stone on Neptune Ur anus an d Venus , , .

On M ars an d Mercury the weight wo uld be

reduced to five stone on the Moon to two while , ,

on the astero ids it would come do wn to a few

ounces L et us suppose a m an of twelve sto ne
.

placed on the Mo on He would b e amazed to .

fin d everything o n e sixth as heavy as on the -

E arth His own weight would be so diminished

.

that he coul d jump over a house with as little

1 E gl d l g l m su
n an
’
s f w i ght
e a bo ut fourt lb s
ea re o e , a een .
 THE OTHER PLA NETS 75

uld on E arth leap across a way

'

efl o rt as he co

side ditch . Pulling out his watch he wo uld feel

practicall y no weight at all A ho rseman who
.

o n e arth would consider a fi ve b arred gate a

-

good jump wo uld o n the Moon leap over a

,

hayrick with the same amo unt of ex ertion Sup .

pose a m an were playing cricket o n the M o on .

On E arth 100 yards is a very good throw ; on

the Mo on o n e of 600 yards would b e acco m
p lis hed with th e s a me a moun t of ex er ti o n O n e.

able astronomer puts this les sened gravity very

clearly : Football would Show a striking devel

‘

o p men t in lun ar play ; a good kick would not

only sen d the b all over the cross bar but it -

,

would go soarin g over the houses an d perh aps

drop in the next p arish .
’

“
N ext let us suppose our m an of twelve stone
weight tr ansferred to o n e of the outer asteroids .

Here his weight would be onl y a few oun ces .

He would feel as light as a feather When he .

j mm d into h i h could sily cl r hous

‘

u t e a r e , ea ea a e

or a tree Foo tball would be an impossibility

. .

A go od sized kick would send the b all up so high

'
-
,

—
it would leave the asteroid fo rever an d become
a little asteroid on its o wn accoun t .
76 THE OTHER PLANETS
One interesting writer speaks o f the planets
“ ”
T he Sun s Kiddies Sir Ro ber t B all in
’
as .
,

considering the planets as the Sun s fam ily says ’

,

“
Venus an d the E arth may be considered the
p air o f twins alike in size an d weight M ercury
,
.

an d M ars are the b abies of the system T he .

”
big brothers are Jupiter an d S aturn Accord .

ing to o n e theory the planets were originall y

,

p arts of the Sun an d wh en

, t h ey were thr o w n
o fi by him they cont inued to spin around on
’
,

their own axis just as a ball continues its whirl

ing motion after it has left the pitcher s hand ’
.

Reason has already been given why the planets

go on Spinning an d why they are held in their
regular p ath or orbit aro und the Sun A n other .

theory known as the P lanetesimal H yp o thesis

, ,

giv es still a difi eren t origin of the planets as we

’
,

shall see later on wh en we come to study the nebu

lae an d it is no less interesting
, .

Now let us fin d a way of telling the planets

from the fixed stars There are several ways.

of do ing this
( )
1 Look for the pl anets a lo ng the s a me
general direction or p ath in which the Moo n
seems to be traveling .
 THE OTHER P LA NETS 77

2) If a planet is above the horizon it is ,

the first o bj ect to be seen in the sky in the

gathering darkness j ust after sun down being ,

“ ”
styled a s an Evening S tar ( T he ca.len d ar
will tell you what plan ets are even ing stars on
an y given d ate ) Following this s ame rule of
.

brightnes s the planets are the l ast to be seen

,

in the sky just before sun up They are the -

.

“
Morn in g Stars Rising early o n e morn in g
.
,

the writer had a splen did view of Ven u s M ars , ,

—
Jupiter an d S aturn alm ost the sole remaining
,

bodies of an esp ecially bright an d interesting

night time sky
-
.

( )
3 No n e O f the pl anets except M e
,rcury ,

twinkl es un less it happ en s to be near the horizon

, .

They shine with a steady light an d their color ,

nam es th em : M ercury p ale ash ; Venus bril

, ,

liant str aw ; Mars reddish ochre ; Jupiter bright

, ,

silver ; Saturn du ll yell ow ; Ur anus an d N ep

,

tune p ale green

, Five of the planets shine at
.

about the brightn ess o f a first m agn itride star .

Venus an d Jupit er are a trifle the brightest ; n ext

M ars M ercury an d S aturn in order Uranus
, , .

is about equal to a sixth magnitude star an d a ,

few of the asteroids approach this N eptune is .

78 THE OTHER P L A N ETS

so far way that we glimpse him only as a star

a

of the eighth magnitude an d then only through

,

the telesco pe .

”
( )
4 When you loca te a su s pect look a t
it several times in the co urse of a few hours .

Comp are its position with reference to some

fixed stars or gro up an d see if you can determine
,

whether it is in motion If so you may feel

.
,

sure th at you h ave foun d a planet .

( 5 ) A st ro nom e rs fi n d th at t he v ery best w ay

to locate the planets is by photography This .

is especially true if the work b e amon g the

asteroids .Frequently time expo sur es are made
of certain fi elds of the heavens These exposures.

may l ast an hour or more . If in the field of

vision there are st ars only they will be photo
,

graphed as points of light But if a small .

planet chances to be wandering along that way

“ ”
he will inevitably make tracks across the plate ,

an d betray his p resence by a continuous st reak

of light .

( )
6 Few p eo p le ho
, w ever ar e
, in position to

p hoto r
g pa h th e sky . T h e n ext su r est a n d b es t
way is to u se an alman ac o r c alend ar which
tells you which p lanets can be seen at cert ain
80 THE OTHER P LANETS
r
p p o er p eriods of the ye a r to look for him you ,

mu st refer to the almanac .

Seldom can Mercury be found with the naked

eye nor does he yield an y more readily to the
,

telescop e H e is usu ally so close to the Sun as

.

to be oversh adowed by the brilli ance of that

luminary Like the other planets Mercur y is
. , ,

of cour se lighted by the Sun s rays an d he shows

,
’
,

p h a ses in the t elescope just as the Moon do es .

One reason why Mercury is so hard to see is b e

cause we never see him again st a d ark b ack
g round W. h en he does g et on t he opposit e

side of the heavens the sun is between him an d

,

us In other words he is in o p p o sitio n as

.
, ,

astron omers sa wh n a pl a n et lies in a st r aight

y e

line beyond the Sun Now M ercury is the far

.

thest fr om the E arth an d were it n o t for the

,

Sun shuttin g o ut o u r view we should see the ,

“
planet with a fully illum inated disc or full ,

”
Mercury Comin g out from his soJourn in the
.

solar glare M ercury does duty as E vening S tar ;

,

then as it comes nearer an d nearer the E arth it

,

begins to show crescents until presently we h ave

,

“ ”
n ew M ercury an d like our s atellite at n ew
,

mo on it b ecomes invisible Now the E arth

.
,
 THE OTHER P LANETS 81

Mercury an d the Sun ar e again in a straight

line But this time they are at conj un ctio n
.
,

because the planet is in the same p art of the

zodia c with the E arth Coming on its j our
.

n ey M ercury soon app ears a s M o rn in S t r ; then

g a

aga in it shows cres cen t s an d finally dis app ear s

in the rays of the Sun to reapp ear again in its

circuit a s E ven ing S tar .

In o ur almanacs co nj un ctio n is shown by the

sign 5 o p p o sitio n by 8
< Sup p ose w e turn to
.

an alm an ac an d note these signs 6 5 8 indicat ed

o n a cert ain d at e : C an you i n t erpret the mean

ing ? It is the astron omer s way of s ayin g briefly
’

that o n thi s dat e a con j unction o f M ercury an d

M ars will take place ; i e the two plan ets will b e
. .

in a straight line an d nearer to each other from

our view th an they will be again fo r a lo n g time .

Referrin g on ce more to the alman ac we read 8

5 69 : the inter p r et ation is th at o n the d at e th ese
signs are marked there will be an opposition b e
tween M ercury an d the E arth ; i e Mercury will . .

b e b eyond the Su n an d therefore hidd en from

view .

Mercu ry you rememb er is the swiftest o f all

, ,

the planets rushing along at the stupendous

,
82 TH E OTHER PLANETS
p ed of twen ty nine miles per second but it
s e -
,

on ly makes on e turn on its axis in its journ ey

ro und the Sun Thus it turn s the same side
.

always to the Sun just as our Moon do es to the

E arth One side of Mercur y is always fl ooded

.

with perpetual sunshin e while the other is black ,

as night One side is baking hot while the other

. ,

is locked in icy throes Small wonder th at its .

su rfa ce seems cr acked in all directions : a geog

”
r aphy in bla ck an d white Owing to the ir .

regular motio n o f the planet an d its slightly ,

varying velocity due to an erratic deviation in

,

its o rbit there is a small zone on Mercu ry wher e

,

”
the sun rises an d sets In fact says Mr Gore
.
, .
,

“
an inh abitant living on the planet s equator
’

would have fo rty four days of sunshine an d

-

fo rty four d ays of night an d twilight A little

- .

farther in on the dark side there would be perpet

ual twilight ; an d farther in still eternal n ight ,

would reign Owing to the low a ltitude at

.

tain ed by the Sun near the bou ndin g li n e its ,

inten se heat an d light wo uld of course be much

mitigated so that probably this region of the
,

l et s surf c m b comp r bl with h

’

p an a e ay e a a e t e
”
temperate zo nes of the E arth .
84 THE OTHER PLAN ETS
Other methods then had to be resorted to
, , ,

an d the result of one of these as told by Sir ,

Rob ert B all in one of the series of lectures

,

which he gave in London mo re th an thirty years

ago is wonderful ly interest ing an d amusing :
,

”
There was once said he an d there is still
, , ,

a little c omet which flits about the sky ; we

call it after the name of its discoverer E n cke , .

There are sometimes splendid comets which

everyone can see —we wil l talk about these after
—
wards but Encke is not such a one It is very .

faint an d delicate but astronomers are in terested

,

in it an d they always look out for it with their

,

telescopes ; indeed they could no t see the poor

,

little thin g without them E n cke goes for long

.

—
j ourneys through sp ace so far that it beco mes
quite invisible an d remains out of sight for
,

two o r three y ears All this time it is tearing

.

a long at a tremen dous speed If you were to .

t ake a ride on the comet it would whirl you ,

along far more swiftly th an if you were sit

ting o u a cannon b all When the comet has

-
.

re ached the end of its j ourney then it tu rns ,

r ound an d r eturns by a di fferent ro ad until at ,

last it c o mes near enough to sho w itse lf .

 THE OTHER P LANETS 85

Astronomers give it all the welcome they can ,

but it won t remain ; sometimes it will h ardly

’

stay long en ough for us to observe th at it has

com e at all an d sometimes it is so thin an d worn

,

a fter all its w an deri n gs th at we are h ardly a ble

to see it T he com et never tak es an y r est ;

.

even dur ing its brief visits to us it is scampering

alon g all the time an d then again it d arts o fl

'

, ,

gradually to sink into the depths of sp ace whith er ,

even our b est telesco p e cannot follow it No .

more is there to be seen of Encke for another

three years when again he will come back for
,

a while . And he is then so shy that usually

”
very few catch a glimpse of him .

Now it seems to tell the story briefly that

, ,

an astr onomer a n d a mathematician were great

friends an d by giving heed to what the astro no

,

m er told him about Encke the mathematician , ,

“
who was what boys would term a whirlwind
at m ath ,shortly figured out a route an d a
time table for E n cke Moreover it wa s ab so
-
.
,

lutely correct as sub sequent vi sits of Encke

,

pro ved Thus all went h appily for some years

.
, ,

an d then lo l Encke failed to appear according

to schedul e .
86 THE OTHER P LAN E T S

What was the reason ? The two friends cam e

well nigh quarrelin g B ut the mathematici an
-
.

was certain his figures were correct Something .

had evidently happened to Encke And shortly .

the truth of this w as app arent Encke turned

.

up all right but not exactly in the place he

,

should h ave appeared ; mo reover there wer e

several indications tha t he was consider ably

j arred an d upset Very plain ly he had been

.

mixed up in a tussle so mewhere !

The mathematician looked o ver his figures
an d drawings In one place alo n g the route
.

Encke came rather clos e to Mercur y s orbit ’

.

“
See wh at M ercury has b een doi ng lately ,

shouted the mathem atician exultantly , .

The astronomer consulted his friends an d to ,

his amazem ent found that erratic little M ercury

had also been showing every indication o f h aving
been up to so methin g an d the problem was
,

“
solved T he m athematician being also a good
,

g uess er ha
,d b een able to l ay his fi nger on the
trouble H e knew that Encke had come near
.

en o ugh to Mercury to be drawn by his attraction .

I n short the law of gravitation had very nearly

,

worked chaos for E n cke ! The astronomer was

88 THE OTH ER PLANET S
at the quarter an d then it will p ass to crescent
,

shap e Then the crescent beco mes grad u ally

.

thinner an d next will follow a brief period of

,

invisibility before the app earance of Venus as

”
the morning star .

Like Mercury Venus makes but one rot ation

,

on her a xis during the 22 5 days it takes her

to go around the Sun an d she also keeps the
,

same face toward the orb of day Hence there .

ar e weeks at a time when she cann ot be seen

beca use of the Sun outshining her when she is

b etween us an d the Sun or by bein g invisible,

because she is at the other side of the Sun Both .

Mercury an d Venus attain th eir greatest bril

lian ce when clo se to con junction For many .

d ays n ear this t ime Venus is visible in the clear

blue even at mi d day an d she is often so da z
-
,

zlin
g in the early ev en ing a s to give cred en ce to

marvelous tales In 1 88 7 8 8 so wondrous w as

.
-
,

“
her sp ectacle th at she w as h ailed a s the St ar of
”
B ethlehem In 1 8 9 7 she shone forth with such
.
,

splendor that a facetious newsp ap er r eporter set

a d rift a t ale citing her as an imm ense electric

light attached to a balloon which had been

, ,

sent up fr o m the Edison lab oratory to apprise

 THE OTHE R PLA N ET S 89

the world of the new light which had just been

Unlike Mercury Venus runs n early true on

,

her orbit ; hence o n e half of her globe is a lways

-

in the bright sun shin e while the other half is ,

in darkn ess Mor eover so dazzlin g is her light

.
, ,

which is of course simply reflected from the

, ,

Sun s own gorgeou sness that we can n o t study

’
,

her even when she faces us plain ly

, Little .
,

therefore is known about the r eal surface of

,

Venus She seem s to b e r ugged an d mountain

.

ous an d in size very nearly appr oaches th at o f

,

the E arth Mor e than o n e a stronomer has fi g

.

u red th at V enus might b e inh abit ed by mo rtals

so mewhat resembling ourselves While she is .

near er the Sun than we ar e t his does n o t n eces ,

sarily mean a hotter climate Other conditions .

o f atmo sphere might o fl set this

’
.

Something o ver a ye ar ago M arconi startled ,

the world by the an nouncement th at he had

received wireless sign als which led him to believe
th at we were being sign aled by another planet
“
They steal in at our st ations at all season s ,

said he “
W e do n o t get the signals unl ess we
.

estab lish a minimum o f sixty five mile wave -

90 TH E OTHER P L AN E T S

lengths . Sometimes we hear these planetary

or interplan etary sounds twenty or thirty min
utes after sending o ut a long wave They do not .

interrupt traffic but when they o ccu r they are

,

very persisten t The most familiar signal re

.

ceived is curio usly musical I t come s in the

.

fo rm of three short raps ; which may be inter

d h Mo le ter S but th re
‘ ’
p re te a s t e rse t e , are
”
other soun ds which may stand for other letters .

’
Australia immediately corroborated M arconi s
statement H ighly skilled an d exp erienced
.

operators at Sidn ey repo rted frequent repeti

tion s o f two d ashes repr es enting the letter M
, .

They came in on wave len gths of to 12 0 ,

000 meters Such wave lengths are not in

.

common u se at an y wireles s st ation df the

earth .

Thomas A Edison co mmenting on the pos

.
,

“
sibility of such commun ications s aid : If we,

ar e to accept the theory of Mr Marconi th at .

these signa ls are b eing sent out by inhabitants

of other planets we must at once a ccept with
,

it the theory of their advanced development .

Either they are our intellectu al equals or o ur

supe riors . I t would be stupid for us to assume
92 T HE OTHER PLANETS
reason a tran sit always b egins o n the east side
of the Sun T he l ast transit of Ven us was in
.

1882 Th erefore no o n e of o ur re aders will ever

.

be able to see this wonderful ph en omenon which ,

has always attract ed the world of scien tists ,

not so much for its beauty or its singul arity ,

but because of the valuable information it a f

fords By takin g certain measurements fro m
.

both sides of the E arth of the di splacem en t

produced in the transit o f Ven us m athem ati ,

ei aus ar e abl e to ca lculate the dista nce o f this

planet an d knowing this they can also not only

,

compute the dist ance of the Sun but the dist ance ,

an d size o f the other pl an ets as w ell This .

method of computing the Sun s distance is how ’

,

ever only o f historical in t erest

, Other an d more
.

accur ate methods h ave displaced it .

M ARS, T H E mm P LAN E T

Mars has prob ably received more att ention

than all the other plan ets put together ; because
wh en it is near est to us it turns its br ightest
side toward us an d at all tim es it is comp ara
,

tively free from heavy clouds so th at it m ay ,

be readily observed M ars to o may quite fre

.
, ,
 THE OTHER PLANETS 98

quently be seen with the naked eye It comes .

—
into opposition with the Sun that is it rises ,

in the e ast a s the Sun sets in the west an d vice ,

versa showing its brightest an d b est at midnight

, ,

—about on ce in two years When it is nearest .

—
the Sun at p erihelio n a s astronomers say
, ,

it shin es with a bright steady untwin kling r ed

, ,

light And fro m its colo r co m es its name : red

.

is the insignia of w ar an d M ars was the w ar god

,

of the ancien t Greeks .

Mars is only a little over h alf as l arge as the

earth ; its diamet er is mil es ; its day is s even
teen minutes longer than our day an d its year ,

is 68 7 of our days If the M arti an year were

.

the same len gth as ours M ars would come into

,

Opposition with the E arth at the s ame time eve ry

odd year But the difference of forty three

.
-

days less th an two of our years causes this c p

positio n to vary about o n e month from o n e time
to the n ext By reference to a good almanac
.

you will learn ex actly in what month to expect

Mars Should the favored tim e be August or
.

S eptember then the planet will be at perihelion ,

an d the sight will b e very brilli ant ; but if the

opposition is scheduled fo r February the planet ,

94 THE OTH E R PLAN E TS
will be at ap helio n the far thest from the Sun
s

an d will shine with lessened brightness .

S trangely enough the red colo r which dis

,

tin guishes M ars is more notice able when seen

by the n aked eye than when viewed through .

the telescope T he instrum ent shows the red of

.

the planet splotched here and there with a d ark

greenish colo r Astrono mers think th at the red
.

dish p arts are continents which are believed to,

be largely d esert land while the gre en p ar ts

,

betoken seas If this be true then Mars has

.
,

—
vastly mo re land than water j ust the reverse ,

of the conditions on the E arth Another inter .

esting feature is that the M artians if there are ,

an y such p eople ca n go from wat er to l and

,

without cr ossing wide oce ans as we must do .

T he surface of M ars is relatively flat an d it is ,

thought th at for the most p art the waters are

not very deep Extensive regions which show
.

sh ad es of or ange an d brown are thought to be

marshes Undoub te dl y Mars is an older pl anet

.

than the E arth an d astrono mers agree that its

,

areas of p erm anent water are r adually dimin

g
ishin g
. White spots at the polar ends of the
planet are thought to be ice caps because they ,
 TH E O TH E R P LA NE T S 95

al ways in crease in size in the M artian winter ,

an d fade when the Sun comes again just as in ,

our own polar circles Indeed M ars shows .

,

materially the same seasonal phases as the

E arth .

There has been endless speculation as to

whether or not Mars is inhabited an d the ,

maj ority of astronomers an d scientists think that

it is But it is p rob able that the M artians are
.

a people constituted differently from our s elves .

Indeed they needs must be ; for the atmosphere

,

of M ars is much thinn er an d rarer than our own ;

besides at sunset the temp erature falls alarm
, ,

in gly reaching at times 1 00 degrees below zero

, , .

Edmund Perrier di rector of the museum of the

,

Jar din des Plantes in P aris gave to the world

, ,

the first picture of the M artians a s he conceived ,

“
them . T he m en on M ars are tall becaus e the
” “
force of gravity is slight he s aid They are , .

blond because the d aylight is less intense They .

have less powerful limbs Their large blue eyes .

,

their stro ng noses their large ears constitute

, ,

a typ e of be auty which we doubtless would n ot

appreci ate except as suggestin g sup erhuman

”
intelligence That the M artians being an
.
,
96 THE O THER PLANET S
older race are beyond us in intellectuality may
,

well be believed .

Much excitement was arou sed in the scientific

world in 1 8 7 7 when S chiap arelli the Italian
, , ,

a strono mer announced his wonderful discovery

,

of streaks or can als p assin g here an d yonder

,

on M ars M any astrono mers have since ver

.

ifi ed the truth of this statement among the ,

most enthusiastic being the late Professor

Lowell dir ector of the obser vatory at Flagstaff
, ,

Ar izona who loo ked upon the can als as direct

,

evidence th at M ars is inhabited by a people who

thoroughly understoo d all the prin ciples o f
in ten sive irrigation To him it w as plain that
.

the temp er ate regions of M ars were an arid

desert an d that to sustain their life the M artians

,

had b een co mp elled to intersect their co untry

with a system of canals an d to brin g water from,

the polar ice cap s In 19 14 the professor s

-
.
,
’

belief was further strengthened by the discovery

that two new canals had recently been built .

“
W e h ave actually seen them fo rmed under our
” “
eyes , he ann ounced an d the import ance of it
,

can har d ly b e overest imat ed The phenomenon .

tran scen ds an y natural law an d is only explica ,

98 THE O THER PLANETS
moons of M ar s ar e abo ut seven miles in diam
eter They are the sma llest bo dies known in
.

the sol ar system with the exception of the

,

asteroid Eros Professor Newcomb comp ares

.

their size as we see them to a small apple viewed

, ,

above Boston from a tele scope in N ew York

City They can be seen only when the planet

.

is n ear Oppositi o n and then only through the

,

large telescopes B ecause of the brightness o f

.

the planet we are told that the outer mo o n is

'

ea sier to see than the irmer o n e although the ,

latter is really the brighter of the two Phobo s .

an d D eimos these two satellites ar e styled in ,

ho n or of the sons of the old w ar god Phobos .

,

the inner moon is ,miles from the planet ,

and goes a r ound it in s ev en hours an d thirty

nine min utes Phobos therefore must seem to

.
, ,

the M artian s to ris e in the west in stead of in

the east as o u r Moon do es

, Furthermore it .

crosses the heavens three times in o n e day It .

gallop s acro ss the sky o vertakes D eimos an d,

eclips es him w e are told an d run s through

, ,

all its ph a ses in eleven hours Wh at a strange .

world where the moon could be seen e arly in the

evenin g at the first quarter an d three hours ,
 THE OTHER PLANETS 99

later at the full ! Deimos takes a much more

leisurely course th an his brother ; in fact he is
about tw o an d o n e h alf d ays m akin g his jour
-

n ey. It would certain ly b e worth a j ourney to

Mar s just to see these won d erful moon s ! It is
do ubtful however if either of these orbs fur
, ,

nishes enough light to illumi nate the evening

skies Perhaps we would do just as well to o h
.

serve them from here app arently playing hide

,

an d s eek with th eir planet p eepin g out now on

-
,

o n e side now on the other

, .

O n e astronomer writin g of the view o f the

,

“
U niverse from the red plan et s ays : Jupiter
,

is magnificent from M ars ; he app ears to the

M artian s half as l arge again as he seems to us ,

an d his s atellit es should b e easily vi sible to the

n ak ed e e S aturn is lik wis v ry brilli t

y . e e e an .

Uranus is easily visible an d they might h ave

,

discovered Neptune before we did They must .

have distinguished with the naked eye a

large number of the small planets which revolve
between their orbit an d that of Jupiter .

Mercury drawn closer to the Sun an d lost in

, ,

his rays is almo st impossible to distin guish

, .

Venus app ears to them as M ercury does to us .

100 THE O THER P LAN E T S
As for the E arth how do we see it ?
, We
are for that planet ! M ar s ! a brilliant star
presenting an aspect similar to that which Venus
presents to us preceding the dawn an d fo llo w
, ,

in g the twilight ; in a word we are to the inbah

,

” 1
itan ts of M ars the sh eph erd s star
’
.

T H E asrm o ms, o n M N OR P LAN ET S

'
I
T he steroids o r pl anetoids as they are some
a , ,

times called form the division between the inner

,

an d the o ut er planet s an d the story of th eir

,

discovery is another proof of the value of good

g uessing in the as tron o mi ca l field Such a v ast .

sp ace exists between M ar s an d Jupiter that it

was early felt th at a planet should be found
revolving between the two For more than 30 0
.

years the s earch was carried on an d astronomers ,

had about lost hope of findin g the missing o n e ,

when B o de a German astronomer put fresh

, ,

stimulus into the p r oceedin g by a set of figures

showing a curiou s relation ship in plan etary
.
—
distances By his rule kno wn as Bode s ’

—
law there was a missing link just where astr on
“
1 The Ro mance of Astro no my —M acpherson
”
, .
10 2 THE OTH E R PLA NETS
gone beyond recall but h appily mathematicians ,

managed to calcul ate an orbit fro m Piazzi s ’

notes an d on the l ast day of the century the

,

p l anet hov e into sight ag a in just a s the m ath ,

em atician s had figured th at it would do ! Ceres ,

it was called in ho nor o f the guardi an go ddess

,

of Sicily .

To be sure C eres was only a small planet

,

48 0 miles in di ameter ; nothing at all like wh at

they had expected to find But she filled the .

g p
a ,an d a stron o m er s felt th at th ey must be
s atisfied Imagine then their surprise as the
.
, , ,

mo st of them went ab out o ther business when ,

three mo nths later Olbers a German astron , ,

omer discovered another planet n o t far from

,

C eres P allas they called it an d it w as soon

.
, ,

seen that both of the n ew planets revo lved about

the sun at n early the s am e dis tance .

. W hat did this mean ? For now the sym

metry of the solar plan was broken Un doubt .

edly the two b o di es were r el at ed an d p r esently ,

it was decided that at some p eriod a planet ,

similar p erhaps to Mer cury had existed b etween ,

M ars an d Jupiter A ge or some catastrophe.

, ,

had dissolved it and the two small pl anets were

,
 THE OTHER PLAN ETS 103

“
the remnants This opin ion was further
.

streng thened by the discovery of Juno in 1 804 , ,

an d Vest a in 1 8 07
, N o further planets havin g
.

been discovered after a period of careful search ,

the theory was regar ded a s fully est ablished an d ,

for forty years no o n e thought o f question in g it .

Then rapidly o n e a fter an o ther due no doubt

, ,

to the in creased power of the telescop e astron ,

omers here an d there b egan to discern other

small planets an d again the search for planetoids
,

was begun with feveri sh eagern ess Presen tly .

so man y had bee n d efinitely loc ated as to make

the effort of n amin g them ab surd It was sug .

gested th at the letters of the alphabet b e ap

plied but these soon p ro ved alto gether in ade
,

quate and the process was begun over designat

, ,

ing the additions A A B B etc This of course

, , .
, ,

w as con fusing an d not sufficient either an d

, , ,

after a time the sensible pl an of number in g the

,

planets wa s adopted T o day the l atest addi

.
-

tion s are catalogued up in the nine hundreds ,

an d a str onomer s a r e no longer speci ally int er

ested in the pl anetoid s Of them all a little

.
,

a ster oid called Eros which was discovered in

, ,

18 9 8 is the onl y one that has ser ved any p artic

,
104 THE OTHER PLANETS
ular purpose Unlike its kindred Eros does
.
,

not travel in the field between M ar s an d Jupiter ;

its orbit is so elliptical that on ce in thirty years
it comes within the orbit of M hrs an d is then ,

o ur near est planet neighbor onl y ,

miles away At this distance it has been photo

.
,

graphed m any times and by measurements thus

,

secured astr o n om ers who never like to rely o n

, ,

an
y one m eth o d h av e bee
,n fur n ished w ith a n

other mean s of calculating the solar d imen sions .

It is hardly probable that an y livin g beings

are to b e found on the asteroids Certainly they
.

would have to be of a totally different nature

fro m an y creatures known on o ur E arth .

Suppose the planets to be of the same density

as o ur sphere on a pl anet o n e hundred miles
,

—
wide o n e eightieth of the diameter of the
-

E arth every weight woul d be reduced to an

eightieth p a rt of wh at it is here T he average .

man then woul d only weigh abo ut a couple of

, ,

poun d s an d as P rofessor B all points out such

, ,

a creature might ea sily possess a p air of win gs

an d b e able to fl y provided the atmosphere were

,

con ditioned like our own .

This writer gives an entertaining picture of a

106 TH E O TH E R P LA NE T S
their position We do kn ow however that
.
, ,

the old theor y of their origin from a wrecked

planet is without foundation Astronomers are .

now satisfied that rings were thrown o ff from the

nebula in Sp ace an d that these should have united
,

to form a large planet But owing to the im

.

mense attra ction of Jupiter such a condensation

of rings was impossible Thus these irmum er
.

able bodies , each pursuing its own appointed

p ath around the Sun serve as o n e of the wonder

,

ful niceti es of the harmony an d balance existin g

in o ur Universe .

e P ITEB , T H E G IAN T P LAN E T

Jupiter is the mighti est of the planets so ,

gre at indeed that all the other planets an d their

s atellites roll ed in to o n e could n o t fill the sp a ce
he occupies . B eside him our E arth seems ,

insignificant ; glob es of our sphere s size ’

would not quite cover this imm ense planet .

Jupiter is miles from the Sun His .

diameter is miles His year is almost

.

twelve of our years lon g But his day is only .

ten hours in len gth which mean s th at Jupiter

,

in spite of his im mensity is rotating on his axis

,
 THE OTHER PLANETS 10 7

so quickly that every fi ve hours the side o f the

planet which is toward us presents an altogether
n ew view .

When Jupiter is in opposition to us he pre

sents a sublime sp ectacle This occurs about
.

on ce in every thir teen months an d he reaches the

,

meridi an at midnight Just as the Sun is sin k

.

in g this big bright star rises in the o pposite

,

horizo n showing clearly at t wilight an d growing

,

more brilli ant a s the n ight advan ces an d he a s

cen ds the sky It is impossible to mi st ak e him
—
. .

H e shines supr eme a b right p articul ar kin g

, .

Since Ga lileo in 1 610 pointed his newly

—
, ,

in vented telescop e the fir st instrumen t o f the

(

—
kin d the world had kn own at Jupiter this ,

silvery body has been the delight of astronomers ,

from the merest amateur to the most expert .

Even the sm all est in strument will sh o w that the

won derful radiance comes from a round disc
like body which is obviou sly a plan et an d will
, ,

give a glim pse of the four largest satellites

moons which ru n through all sorts of b risk an d
lively changes an d eclip ses an d which it is
,

thought m ay possibly be inh abited the larger

, ,

exceedin g the size of the planet Mercury These .

1 08 THE OTHER PLANETS
moons of Jupiter too inter esting from an
, , are

other poin t : it was their eclipses which fir st

suggested to astronomer s an d mathematicians
that light had a m easureable speed To day we .
-

kno w that light rushes alo ng so swiftly that it

could go more than seven times aroun d the earth
in a single secon d its velocity being in tru th
, , ,

miles per second Altogether Jupiter .

has n ine moon s T he irm erm o st o n e flies around

.

him in about eighteen hou rs ; but the outside o ne

takes nearly seventy d ays to p erfo rm the revo lu
tion .

Jupiter is of v ast in terest because it is evi

den tly a world in the making Great clouds rise .

from it in immense volume showin g that it is ,

still terrifically hot n o doubt yet in a semi

,

liquid an d gaseous con dition It is thought .

,

however th at the light which it casts is not from

,

its own heat It has co o led sufficiently to reflect

.

the Sun s rays but not en ough to main t ain water

’

on its surface Doubtless a gre at p art of

.

Jupiter s size is due to its inflat ed gaseous con

’

dition ; for by mean s o f its mo o ns incredible as ,

it m ay seem to us mathematici an s have suc,

ceeded in weighing the great plan et s mass

’
.
110 THE OTHER PLANETS
miniatur e sun giving out a certain amount of
,

heat as well a s reflected light .

Galileo s discovery of the four large moons of

’

Jupiter was the best possible p roo f of the

Cope rnican theory Here on a plane easily
.

discernible was a rep ro duction of the solar sys

tem which should convince the most skeptical .

But certain prejudiced opponents of the system ,

it is said refused to loo k through the telescope ;

,

others an d p erhaps the most stiff necked looked

,
-
,

an d r efused to credit the sp ect acle s ayin g th at ,

the s atellites were in the telescop e not in the ,

sky ! T he four moons n am ed in or der of size

, ,

are G an ymede ( III ) ; C all isto ( IV ) Io ( I ) , ,

an d Europ a ( II ) but they are most common ly

kn own by their numerals which indicate their
,

nearness to Jupiter .

S T A URN URAN US AN D
,
NE PTUN E

S aturn is the farthest planet that can b e

e asily observed with the naked eye an d then he ,

app ears onl y as a st ar of the first m agnitude ,

about the brightness of C ap ella in the constell a

tion of Aur iga There is one advantage how

. ,

ever when he rises at Si m set he can be seen dur

,
 T HE O TH E R P LAN E T S 111

in g the whole night so that o n e has not only

,

plenty of time to find him but to observe him

as well Moreover he recurs night after n ight
.
,

for several months The ancients thought little

.

o f him ; in deed th ey considered him an un lu cky

p la n et slo,w of m o tion dull of light , an d a lto ,

gether a symbol of gravity and gloom P ersons .

so un fortunate as to be born under his sign were

“ ”
sure to b e dull an d moros e in nature s aturnine ,
.

U nder the powerful telescopes of to day ho w -

,

ever S atur n t akes on an altogether di fferent

,

hue . So far from bein g the least interestin g

of the planets he is indeed altogeth er the most
,

’
fascinating an d un ique To the best of man s .

knowledge there is none other like him in our

univers e .

W hat we see thro ugh the p o werful len ses is

a glorious dull yellow orb strip ed with belts,

sim ilar to those of Jupiter but fainter owing ,

to its great distance ( S aturn is sometimes .

nearly a thous an d million miles from us ) .

Aroun d the planet is a wonderful system of

—
three rings two bright an d o n e of semi trans -
,

p a r en cy c a lled ,the cr ep e r ing T h e ri ngs it h a

.s ,

been found are made up of millions of little

,
112 T H E O T H E R P L AN E T S

pieces tiny moons or satellites in themselve s

,
.

T he mo ons m ay be sep arat ed from o n e ano ther

thousands o f miles but at this dist ance they
,

Show as a complete circle or rin g M o reover .

these magn ificent rings taken together as a plate

,

o r rim ar e not less than

, miles in diam
eter , miles in width an d from fifty to ,

o n e hundred miles thick Our E arth coul d.

“ ”
revolve on this celestial deck as Flamm arion ,

“ ”
puts it like a ball rolling along a road
, More .

over the planet in the center is more th an 900

,

times the size of our sphere The ring system .

however m ay b e a transient feature another

, ,

satellite in process of forma tion .

S aturn has ten known moons each revolving ,

in its well appoin ted orbit an d depen ding on

-
,

him n o t only fo r heat but as the giver of light .

Should an y of these satellites h ave inh abitants ,

they probably regard their planet much as we do

our Sun Titan the largest of these worlds
.
, ,

equals the planet M ercury in size Themis the .

,

smallest yet kn own is discern ible onl y by pho

,

’
to graphy Phoebe the most distant of S aturn s
. , ,

sat ellites is the most remarkable little moon in

,

existence possessing an independent spirit th at

,
114 T H E OT HER PLANETS
o ne into th at oc ean S aturn would actually float
,

”
while all the others would sin k Of co urse .

this extraordinary lightness of the planet can b e

expla ined in only o n e way ; S aturn like Jupit er , ,

is in an early stage of development The vast .

clouds which rise from its surface betoken a

—
state o f chaotic existence violent eru ptions ,

seething b o iling masses of inflam mable elements .

clouds of gas an d a sweltering he at

, .

T he planet Uranus can s o metimes be seen in

the sprin g an d summer months shining with a ,

p ale green light if yo u h ave a go od eye an d know

,

just where to lo ok for him It is prob able that

.

the world m ark ed him as a st ar for centuri es .

A n y real kn owledge that has been had of him

has of cours e come through the most powerful
, ,

telescopes ; though H erschel the G erman ,

astronomer who first sighted the pl anet wa s a ,

mere amateur a musician by trad e who worked

, ,

with a home m ade t elescop e

-
Uranu s is
.

millions of miles from the Sun an d has a diame

,

ter of miles H is day is thought to be

.

about el even hours long an d his year is eigh ty

,

four o f o ur years long By the aid of his four

.
 THE OTHER PLANETS 1 15

sat ellites Uranus tho ugh such a vast distance

, ,

from the E arth has b een weighed in the m athe

,

m atical scales an d found to be about fifteen times

heavier than the earth T he sp ectroscope has .

proven that the planet has an extremely dense at

m o sp here T he two inner s atellites of Uran us
.

ar e about 5 00 mil es in diam et er ; the outer on es

ar e n early twi ce as l arge Like Phoebe they .

,

choose to travel in con trary motion that is from ,

east to west o r as astronomers say their motion

,

is retrograde .

While astronomers were busy studyin g U r a

n us in order to discover as much about its con
,

dition as possible careful observer s so on took

,

note o fhits eccentricity It did n o t follow the .

ex act p ath which the m ath em atici ans figured

that it should Evidently something w as inter

.

ferin g with its mo tion What could it b e ? .

W as there yet another planet beyond this o n e ?

Two youn g students one at C ambridge E ng , ,

land named Adams an d the oth er Le Verri er

, , ,

a Frenchm an set o u t to figur e an orbit such

,

as it was prob able the unknown planet if th ere ,

were o n e was traveling N either kn ew of the

, .

other s plan s an d it chanced th at Adams fin ished

’

,
11 6 THE OTHER PLANETS
his calcu lations first an d sent them in to the
Royal As tronomer Ai ry a former professo r , ,

of C ambridge It happ ened that the great m an

.

was extra busy an d he put the mem o randa in ,

a pigeon hole an d forgot all about them

-
When .

Le Verrier fini shed his drawings an d conclu

sions they chanced to meet Airy s ey e H appily ’
.
,

’
the professor now remembered young Ad ams
offerin g an d on bringing it to light found that
, ,

the two young men had arrived at the s ame con

elusion This was a m arvelous coincidence ;
.

probably nothing more But the professor mad e .

haste to have their suggestion tested an d ther e ,

indeed was the disturber of Uranus a planet ,

showing a greenish disk of light About the .

same time a like test w as mad e at the B erlin

,

obs ervatory by Dr Galle at L e Verrier s request

, .
,
’

with the same results There could b e no doubt .

,

then th at a n ew addition had b een ma de to the

,

solar system an d the n ew wanderer was shortly

,

christened N eptune .

T he planet is altogether invisible to the naked

eye but it is s ufficiently bright to h av e b een c c
, ,

casio n ally recorded in old st ar maps as a st ar .

Indeed some fi fty years before it was name d a

,
118 THE OTHER PLANE T S
one fi fth of what it would be if he were made of
-

earthly elements He is in all p robability com

.
, ,

p aratively in his infancy His year is known to

.

be 165 of our years long but the length of his

,

day has not been determined .

A re there other planets outside of Neptune ?

“
C an we consider it as M acpherson queries the
, ,

fro ntier of the Sun s domain ’

As tronomers
’

are not yet ready to answ er this question Be .

cause o f unexp la ined influenc es affecting certain

comets many believe th at there is still another

,

p lanet in the Sun s family W e hav e onl y

’
.

known of the existence of Neptune for about

seventy years P erchance ere the century ends
.

some one may be ready with a solutio n of the

query .
 V

T H E M OO N , A ’
D AU GH TE R O F T H E E ART H

THE ncients named the first day of the week

a

Sun day in honor of the sun god Likewise

-
,
-
.
,

the secon d day w as n am ed a fter the next mo st

— —
h p o rtan t celestial body the moon Moon day -
,

which comm on usage has shortened to Monday .

Though the Moon is our n earest neighbor in

sp ace so n ear that its distance m ay be counted
,

in thous an ds of miles it is yet a long way o ff

,

“
about miles . If you were to wrap a
thread ten times round the equ ator of the E art
says Professor B all It would b e long enough
,

to stretch from the E arth to the Moon Or .

suppose a c ann on could be made sufficiently

strong to be fired with a report loud en ough
to b e audible miles away T he sound
.

would on ly b e heard at that distance a fortnight

”
a fter the disch a rge had t aken place An ex .

press train travelin g at the rate of sixty miles

,

an hour ,an d s toppin g neith er night nor day ,

119
12 0 MO O N DAUGHTER OF
,
E A RTH

woul d reach the Moon in about five an d one

half months .

No explorer has ever visited our satellite an d ,

it is not probable th at one ever will ; yet we really

kno w more about the geography of the Moon
than we do of so me p arts of the E arth T ake .

the dark contin ent of Africa Here are wide .

tracts of forests gre at lakes an d lofty moun

, ,

tains of which little is known While on the . ,

side of the Moon nearest us there is scarcely a

,

spot as large as the average county whi ch has

not been mapp ed an d photographed many times .

Astronomers have p ainstakingly built up great

charts of the Moon as large as good sized
,
-

garden plots One of the most notable of these

.
,

the work of Johann Schmidt w as b egun when ,

the great German astron omer was onl y a lad

of four teen an d was completed shortly before
,

his death forty years later All points of lunar

, .

interest are of course carefully named on the

, ,

various maps an d charts an d astronomer s

,

are prob ably more familiar with the terms

Eratosthenes an d Tycho than yo u are with
Vesuvius an d Kilauea .

A favor ite theory is that the Moon was once

12 2 M OON DAUGH T ER OF E A RT H
,

the vicinity where the pent up gases issued - .

Many of the volcano es so established are still

active on the E arth but those of the Moo n ar e
,

dead because the Moon being so much smaller

,

than the Earth cooled more rapidly an d thus ,

the internal fires necess ary for volc anic out

breaks were soon quenched .

Though the Moo n is the E arth s d aughter she ’

,

is not a world like ours is to d ay She is a typ e .

o f what the E arth m ay be ages hen ce For the .

Moon is cold an d dead ; her life fires have long

“
since b urn ed out She is a clo sed ch apter in
.

”
the boo k of time As Flamm ar ion po ints out :
.

“
In sp ace there are both cradles an d tombs .

Jupiter Uranus an d Neptune as we have seen

, , , ,

are in the cr adl e stage T he Moon is one of the

.

tomb s of the Universe Bleak an d b are and .

still she is ; without air or water or life of any , ,

form B esid es her mountains an d craters an d

.

consequent valleys the Moon has gr eat gr ay

,

stretches which the ear ly a stronomer s thought

,

to b e seas an d named them accordingly the ,

“ ” “ ”
S ea of S erenity Sea of Tranquillity
, etc , .

I t is n o w known that there are n o s eas on

the Moon T he gray stretches are simply vast
.
 MOON DAUGHTER O F E A RT H
, 12 3

dead planes ; perchance ocean beds from which

the water has lo ng since dis appeared But the .

names have b een retained as a matt er of con

ven ien ce .T he mountain s of the Moon h ave
been called after those of the Old World .

There are the Alp s the Ap ennines and the

, ,

C arp athi an s T he two highest ran ges Doerfel

.
,

an d L eibnitz ar e from , to feet ,

much exceedin g the highest moun tains o n the

E arth More than forty lunar p eaks have been
.

n oted which exc eed Mont Blanc T o dd ex .

plain s the greater height o f the mount ains on

the moon as du e to the lesser surface gravity of

our satellite Perhaps the reader m ay wonder

.

how the height of mount ains on the moon can be

determin ed ? The answer is by measurin g the
sh adows which they cast .

T he craters on the Moon get their n am es from

an ci ent scientists : Tycho Ptolemy Cop er , ,

n icu s Plato
, Archimedes etc Some of these
, , .

cr aters ar e enormous T he w alls of Cop ern icus

.
,

for ex ample are about fifty miles thick an d

, ,

over two miles high A ll about this great disc

.

the surface is rugged in the extreme and from ,

its center rises a cluster o f conical mountains .

12 4 MOON DAUGHTER OF E A RTH
,

T riesn ecker , nother remarkable crater has a

a ,

mysterious system of cliffs or chasms a mile ,

across at their widest point an d some 300 miles ,

in breadth Some astrono m ers credit this won

.

dr o us spectacle as the path of an ancient river

bed Sim ilar to the craters in formation are the
.

great wall ed plains often 15 0 miles across sur

, ,

rounded by mountain ous ramp arts rising often ,

feet above the enclo sed plain Rills is .

the name given to a se ries of great yawning

chasms which run fo r m iles in fairly straight
, ,

lin es over craters mountain s an d plain s across

, , ,

portions of the surface of the Moon Som e .

astronomers r egard the m arvelous arr ay of ir

regularities on the Mo o n s surface as proof th at

’

neither water nor atmosp h ere has ever been

present on our s atellite .

T he Moon t akes as much time to turn on its

—
own axis as it does to go around its orbit about
twenty eight days So th at like Mercury an d
-
. ,

Venus the Moo n s day an d ye ar are of the same

,
’

length For this reason too the s ame side of

.
, ,

the Moon is always turn ed toward the E arth

an d thus it follo ws that the lun ar d ays an d

nights are about as long a s fourteen of our days .

12 6 MOON DAUGHTER OF E A RTH
,

A simple little expe riment will Show you how

it is that the Moon shows phases for of course ,

she does n o t change her shap e ; the whole round

Moon is always there only p art of it is in the
,

shadow H ang a rubber ball fr om the ceilin g

.

in the center of a dark room Then set a lamp

.

to represent the Sun in such a man ner that its

beams fall squarely on the side of the ball which ,

“ ”
you are to fancy as the Moon Now as you
.
,

look at the Moon from squarely in fr on t of it you ,

see the whole br ight side It is full moon

. .

Moving a little farther to o n e side either way , ,

the Moon looks nearly full — fco t b all shap e in -

,

fact This is the gibbo us mo on Going a little

. .

farther we see o n ly a quarter of the b all This

, .

is the h alf moon or as it is more common ly

,

called the first or las t quarter dep en ding on ,

whether it is west or east of the Sun A little .

farther an d only a slim crescen t is seen This .

is the n ew crescen t o r the o ld crescen t Moon

, ,

depen din g o n direction as above Going on .

still farther you fin d the Moon b etween you an d

the Sun Its d ark side is toward you an d it is
.
,

therefore invisible This is the n ew moo n

. .

Yo u will fin d it most in teresting to follow a

 M OO N DAUGHTER OF E A RTH
, 12 7

course of the Moon s phases Watch your

’
.

ca lendar for the date when the n ew moon is due .

You won t be able to see it of cour se but two

’
, ,

or three days lat er you m ay expect the n ew

crescent lo w in the western sky with her horns
, ,

or cusps turned toward the east Now too

, .
, ,

“
you m ay perhap s catch a glim pse of the old
”
M oon in the n ew Moon s arm s This is an
’
.

interesting ph enomenon Wh at we see is the

.

dark globe of the Moon app arently filling the

slen der silvery crescent like arms o f the new
-

M o o n But pro bably you would never guess

.

why this is to be seen It is earth shin e The

.
-
.

Suns rays are reflected fr om the E arth to the

’

Moon so th at the Moon is lighted with earth

,

shin e just as the E ar th is lighted with moon

shine an d it is these reflected rays that light up

,

the d ark p ar t of the Moo n causing it to ap

,

p ear embraced by the crescen t made by the Sun .

T hink wh at a mar velous j ourney th ese light rays

have had ! From the Sun to the E arth then ,

b ack to the Moon an d down to the E arth again !

,

The Moon moves eastwar d amon g the st ars

of the zodiac at the r ate of about thirteen degrees
each day ; hence she appears to us about fifty
 128 M OON DA U GH T E R OF E A RT H
,

five minutes later each night When the Moon .

is ne ar the quarter phase her sh ape is a good,

guide to mark out the p ath of the ecliptic Join .

her horns by an imaginary lin e ; then a lin e

standing perpendicular to this lin e extended ,

both ways will very nearly point the p ath f0 1

,

lowed by the Sun The small crescen t Moon

.

shines thr ough onl y a sm all p art of the night ,

the half Moon gives its light for h alf of the night ,

an d the full Moon although it ris es a little later

,

each night shines all night long About the

, .

time o f the autum nal equinox S eptember 2 1 , ,

when the days an d nights are equ al the full ,

Moon rises at ne arly the s ame hou r for s everal

nights in succession This is called the H arvest
.

M oon The October full Moon is the H un ter s ’

.

M o on .

A ll of you h ave se en the M an in the Moon ,

an d doubtless you know too th at the m arkings

.
, ,

which seem to portray the human face are in ,

truth actual confi gurations of the Moon s sur

,
’

face T he ancients were much ex ercised

.

about th ese d ark m arkings They thought at .

first th at the Moon merely served as a huge

mir ror in which to reflect the rough contours of
 1 30 MOO N DAUGHTER
. or EA RTH
one day after full moon the o rb is due south at
an d so on T o day the M o on is of such
.
-

immens e importance to n avigators that many

astr onomers ar e needed to keep accurat e record

of her movements It is the attr action of the

.

Moon for the E arth that pro duces the tides .

“ ” ”
T he hours for high an d low tides ar e c are
fully computed by the astronomers an d form a
very necessary p art of the nautical calen dars .

The Su n has some little influence o n the tides ,

too an d when the Sun an d the Moon are in li n e

, ,

as at full an d n ew Moon the tides are high est

, .

W e call these sp ring tides At half moon the .

-
,

S un an d the Moon are ex er cising a pull in o p

p o site d i rections . Th en the tides ar e the lowest .

Such tides are called neap tides T he tides are .

N ature s scavengers of the sea coast Without

’
.

their energetic scr ubbin g an d clean sing ris ,

ing twice in every day an d night our beaches ,

would b e far from the spots of delightful fresh

n ess th at they now ar e .

Suppose that we might be able to b ail a p ass

ing comet an d hie ourselves o ff to the Moon
what would we really find there ? W e should
'

have to carry air with us or we coul d not p o s

,
 MOON DAUGHTER OF EARTH
, 1 31

sibly live even to reach the Moon much less get ,

o ur br e ath a ft er we got there At the height .

of three o r four miles above the E arth the atmos ,

p he r e grows v ery thin an d at ten mil

, es up ,

unl ess we had life giving oxygen with us at com

-

mand we shoul d die It might also be a good

, .

plan to have water with us But we won t .

’

bother with these essen tial details Just sup .

po se the p ro blem solved an d ourselves lan ded

o n the Moon . Will we dare set foot on the
r ock s ? No doubt they are un speakably cold ,

all a bout is freezi n g There is a possibility

.

that we m ay turn imm ediately to pillar s of ice !

There is no air blanket to hold the heat from the
-

Sun so that luminary is of n o possible use so

, ,

far as heat is concerned Astronomers have

.

determined that duri ng the lon g lun ar nights

the temperature must drop to 300 d egr ees or

more b elow zer o W e shall certainly stay but

.

a moment !

How extrao rdinarily light we feel ! And

with reason : for obj ects o n the Mo on weigh onl y
o n e sixth wh at they do on E arth
-
W e scarcely .

feel the weight of o ur big silver watch as we ,

draw it out to see the time A stone that we .

132 MOON DAUGHTER OF EARTH
,

could n o t possibly lift at home is picked up

wi thout the slightest effort And as we step
.

hastily o ff to have a look around we sto p in ,

am aze for it is a s though we had donn ed the

,

S even League Boots ! O n e of our p arty mo

tions u s to try a j um m but we are n o t to be
tempted W e feel very sure w e could vault
.

that great rock yonder witho ut h alf t rying .

Indeed more th an likely we Should land away

,

—
over in Copernicus o r o r Ar chim edes ! Of
course no o n e makes an y attempt to talk Fo r
, .

as there is no air h ere to c arry the w aves of sound ,

we could n o t possibly be heard Also we are

.

careful to stand in the direct sunlight Indeed .

we hardl y dare to look into the sh adows They .

ar e deep er an d black er th an an ything th at coul d

possibly b e im agin ed o n the E arth W e feel .

sure that if we should step o ff in to o n e we should ,

b e as cer tain ly lost as if w e had fallen into o n e

of the deep pits W e should b e in visible to our
.

com r ades an d whistling or shoutin g wo ul d not

,
is

avail .

Our atten tion is attract ed to the wide Uni

ver se Comp aratively close to us is a moon
.
,
 MOON DAUGHTER OF EARTH
, 133
‘

ab out four times as bro ad as the satellite we are

u sed to gazing upon It has wo nderful polar
.

caps of ice an d snow v as t oceans mount ains an d

, ,

plains an d great hazy cloud areas Somehow

, .
,

there is a very familiar look about its gen eral

outlines ! C an it be th at this wondrous moon
is our earth ? Yes indeed ,If we were to stay .

lo n g enough we should see it turn on its a xis

,

every twenty four hour s an d ru n through all its

phases from crescent quarter gibbous an d full

, , ,

back to cr escent again just as we see o ur o wn

,

Moon doin g when we ar e at home Million s of .

miles out in sp ace is the Sun an d because of the ,

absence o f air we see the great o r b of day in all

,

his wond ro us m agn ifi cen ce — sun spots fiery , ,

prominences an d mar velous coron a all in daz ,

zlin g arr ay What an unspeakably gorgeous

.

sp ectacle ! The st ars too seem much bigger an d

, ,

brighter th an they do fr om the E arth an d there ,

ar e m any mo r e of them — a s man y as we see at

home when looking through a thr ee in ch tel -

esco pe.

But not withstanding all these outward splen

,

dors it is a relief to embark from this cold de ad

, ,
134 MO ON DA UGH T E R OF
, E A RT H

world with its endless succession of j agged

,

ro cks great gray b arren plains an d

, ,

—
volcanoes this onwar d thro ugh
sp ace.
136 COMETS
comet ; in the time o f the Norman Conquest a ,

co m et appeared spr eading its glorious ta il across

the sky a forerunner it appeared of the subse
, , ,

quent victory of the Normans Another comet .

,

seen in 1 45 6 supposedly had a connection with

,

the cap ture of Const antinople by the Turks .

A S late as the seventeenth century an illness ,

amon g the cats in Germany was ascribed to the

app earance of a p ar ticularly freakish com et .

But as science became more advanced an d ,

telescop es more numerous it was found that for

,

one comet seen by mortal eyes there were hun

dreds w hich could only be seen thr ough the glass .

O bviously then the old theory woul d h ave to

, ,

b e ab andoned But whence came these capri

.

cio u s visitors of sp ace ? It was easy to believe

that they m ight have been dr awn by the attrae
tion of the sun But what kept them from
.

tumbling in to the shining orb an d whither did

,

they go ? It wa s Newton who fir st declared

that comets moved in o rbits just as the plan ets
,

do an d subsequently a great deal was discovered

,

about these err atic m ess engers of sp ace .

To begin with it w as fo und that a comet is

,
 COMETS 1 37,

e lly made up of three p arts : ( 1 ) a bright

r a

head or core called a n ucleus ( 2 ) a hazy light

, ,

layer c alled a co ma; ( 3 ) a luminous tail which

, ,

wax es an d wanes in a most remarkable manner .

Moreover by mean s of the spectrum the very

, ,

subst ances which make up the nucleus the active ,

p art of the comet have been determined Chief

, .

amon g th ese are iro n c arbon sodium

, ,
— all m ate,

rials th at are found in the Sun an d the plan ets ,

an d ma teri als with which w e are all f amilia r .

Sodium p erhap s you m ay not recogn ize ; but it

makes up the bulk of the salt in the sea T hese .

materials appear in the comet in bunches of

ston es which are held together as they sp eed
,

through sp ace by th at wonder ful agen t known

as attr a ction As a comet draws near to the
.

Sun its elements b egin to get hot an d to throw

o ff burning v apors or gases which mak e up its
,

coma an d then stream o ff in luminous v apors

,

forming its t ail .

A comet without a t ail is a very poor affair ,

an d astronomers give it sm all heed But one .

cannot always tell about com ets When first .

sighted heading toward the Sun a comet has no

,
138 COMETS
t ail worth noting Astronomers however keep
.
, ,

it covered They know that if the comet is not

.

a poor b um ed out affair there ar e likely to be

-
,

marvelous e ffects as soon as the Sun s heat be ’

g ins to be felt If t h
.e ta il does begin to d ev elop ,

it shoots out from the head with en ormous rapid

ity an d often grows to many million miles in
,

length as the comet comes o n with terrific speed .

Once the messenger has made his obeisan ce to

the Sun ho wever an d h ead ed the other way the
, ,

tail begins to dimin ish an d presen tly the comet

,

vanish es into sp ace as undecorated as when it

was first heralded .

C omets have be en known with two three an d , ,

as man y as six t ails T he comet of 1 8 8 2 whose

.

won ders astron o mers never tire of relatin g had ,

a m arvelous t ail miles in len gth .

Could this co met s head hav e been placed at the

’

Sun its t ail would h ave st reamed not only to

,

the E a rth but out into sp a ce acro ss it !

, N atu r
ally o n e would exp ect a com et s t ail to follow its
’

head It does so long as the co met is rushin g

.
,

toward the Sun but when it turns to go the

,

other w ay the t ail sweeps on in advance Thu s

, .
,

you see a comet s tail always points away fro m

,
’
140 COMETS
It happ ens that there are o ther bodies in the
sky v ery like comets ; w e c all them neb ulae So .

that just as a planet is liable to be mistaken fo r

a st ar so a com et is li able to be t ermed a neb ula
, .

It chances also that the test in the two instances

is the same A nebula always stays in the same
.

place like a star while the comets an d planets

, ,

are ev er o n the mov e There are s ever al ways

.

to distinguish a comet fro m a planet In the .

fir st plac e it must be remembered that the

,

maj o rity of comets are to b e seen only through

the telescop e ; the really brilliant co mets th at can
be seen in a lifetime m ay be counted on the
fingers Again comets never burst into view
.
, ,

wondrous an d beautiful ; no matter how gre at

they m ay gro w to be they are first seen as dim
,

little p atches of light They travel with exceed

.

in g switfness Indeed by w atching o n e steadily

.
,

for a time it m ay be seen to slip p ast the stars

it is first noted amo ng E ach n ight to o an .
, ,

appro achin g comet grows larger an d brighter ,

an d its t ail pr es ently b egins to mak e its a p

p ea r an ce Wh e
. n it r each es this st age the comet ,

is more wonderful observed with the naked e e

y
 COMETS 1 41

than through the mo st powerful telescop e Its .

head glows brighter than the bright est planet ,

an d its t a il spr ea ds out in a glo wing are which

lights up the whole h eavens T he pl anets you

.
,

rememb er are not foun d outside the zo di ac

, .

T he com ets shoot in an d out of the solar system

from and to every dir ection in app arently the
,

m o st err atic a n d method m ad fashion

-
.

They are the witches of the sky fantastic an d

,

changeable W e can almost fancy tha t we see

.

the broom stick s ! But st aid astron omers are not

at all in love with th eir antics How many p ages
.

of p ain ful figures have th ey wrecked ! H ere is

an orbit a n d sch edule c ar efully w orked out .

Miss Comet is due to make her ho w at such an d

such a time T he fact is published But she
. .

does not app ear Th en when least expected

.
, ,

along she m ay whi sk t aking the world by sur

,

—
prise an d the astronomers with the rest .

T he nearer a comet gets to the Sun the faster

it travels frequently rushing along more than
,

a th o u s and times swifter th an the sp eed of a rifle

ball One case is on record of a comet which

.

had been coming in fo r an incalculable time

142 COMETS
toward the sun suddenly being drawn forward
,

at such a tremendous rate th at in tw o hour s it

had speeded roun d the Great King an d sta rted

b ack into the d epths Of cours e these terrific
.
,

“
o u tbur sts do not l a st long A p ace which n ear
.

the sun is tim es that o f our express trains

” “
diminishes we are told to
, , times to ,

fifty times to ten times that p ace ; while in

,

the outermost p art of its p ath the comet seems to

cr eep along so slowly that we might thin k it
had been fatigued by its previous ex ertions .

An old astrono mer calculated that there were

probably more comets in the sky than fishes in
the sea To date however only about
.
, ,

com ets have been registered To b e obs erved .

,

it has been estimated th at a comet s head must

,
’

be at least miles in di ameter T he aver .

age is fro m to miles an d the ,

g r eates t comet y et record ed is th at of 1 8 1 1 ,

measur ing over —

miles fourteen times
larger than Jupiter the largest pl anet !
,

Where these stran ge visitors these ghosts of ,

the skie s come from an d the p aths th at they

, ,

—
travel for there is really order in their wild o n
rush — is o n e o f the mo st interesting problems o f
1 44 COMETS
times
faster than the fastest express
tr ain Moreo ver the comet is several tho usand
.
,

miles away from the sun ; the swift traveling -

comet previously mention ed which went by at ,

p erihelion at the amazing rate of 366 miles p er

second p as sing around the Sun in two hours
, ,

made the nearest known appro ach to the great

orb miles The Sun does not stop a
.

comet but it changes its direction

, .

Three forms of p ath ar e pos sible to co mets .

What these are m ay best b e glean ed from the

i llustration O nl y tho se comets which follo w
.

the elliptic p ath can be con sidered members of the

so lar system T he other two p aths are open
.

curves an d o nce the comet has swu n g in an d p aid

,

his ghostly co metary tribute he will never come ,

b ack . There is o n e caution however : Astron ,

o mers h ave found that thes e tw o l atter curves

m ay sometim es b e in reality gigantic ellip ses ,

an d th at in the cours e of a thous and year s or

more the wanderers alo n g these p aths m ay heave

into sight again Of course there must b e some
.

method of determining this an d presently the ,

mathematicians proved that when a comet going

1 46 COMETS
so ,with other heavenl y bodi es an d is hurled mil
,

lions of m iles out of its bea ten path Sometimes .

it lo ses its way altogether A gain it m ay be

.

shattered into s everal fragments Astron omers .

have frequently noted two or three such wander

ers along the gen eral p ath th at o ne known comet

was supposed to take Then the question aris es

.

as to whether they ar e n ew bodies or merely sec ,

tions of the old o n e widely scattered .

About thirty comets in go od an d regular stand

in g are now known with periods of less than
,

1 00 ye ars the shortest being Encke s comet

’
, ,

three an d one half years an d the longest that

-
,

of H alley s comet something over seventy five

’
,
-

years N early all of these bo dies are in visible

.

to the naked eye an d at best can only b e seen

,

for a very brief p eriod T he outer plan ets all

.

h ave comets which revolve in ellipti cal orbits

a bout them : Jupiter 1 8 S aturn 2 Uranus 3
, , ,

an d Neptun e 6 . And the in terestin g p art about

this feature is that these comets are captiv es : once
they undoubtedly described gr eat p ar abolas or
hyp erbolas But in rushing to ward the Sun
.
,

they p assed so ne ar the planet to which they n o w

 C OME T S 147

owe allegiance that their p aths were deflected ,

an d they fou nd themselves held forever by

the overmastering attraction of the giant
bodies .

Generally speaking the great comets come

,

within our vision once an d are then never seen

again H all ey s comet is an exception an d this
’
.
f
,

comet is also of sp eci al interest b ecause it was

by means of it that the world first became as

sured that comets really traveled in orbits .

H alley the English astronomer who first sighted

, ,

this comet an d charted its ellipse found th at it,

came very ne ar the Sun in one p art o f its j our

n ey an d swung out nearly to the orbit of N eptune

on the other In poring over the records to see

.

if he had found a n ew comet he noted that twice

,

before at in tervals of ar o u nd seventy five ye ars

,
-
,

messengers of sp ace had been charted in almost

this same orbit Most c arefully H alley con
.

sidered the matter : he knew that from its ,

proxim ity to Jupiter an d to S aturn at certain

points the p ath of his comet was bound to be a
,

trifle uncertain at each revolution A n d a great

.

ide a came to him : he became assured that his

14 8 COMETS
comet an d the other two which had been reco rded
were o ne an d the s ame If this were true it
.
,

fully establi shed Newton s theory th at comets

’

had orbits . But H alley was a m an in his prime .

H e knew he would n o t live another seventy five -

y e ar s to see his b elief proven So h e publish

. e d
“
his theory adding : If it should return acco rd
,

ing to o ur predictions about the year 17 5 8 im

, ,

p a rti a l posteri ty will not r efus e to acknowl e dg e

”
that this was first discovered by an Englishman .

The name the comet bears fully shows that

p oste rit
,y a fter verif y ing th e truth of H a lle y s
’

prophecy w as only too glad to p erp etuate his

,

fame Inciden tally as a furth er witness of the

.
,

a ccur acy o f m athematici an s figures three cal

’
,

culato rs set the d ate fo r the r eturn of the comet

as November 4 , November 1 1 an d November ,

12 , 1 8 35 , respectively ; the comet app eared

Novemb er 1 5 H alley s is the comet previously
.
’

men tion ed as app earin g in the time of the

Norman conquest 10 66 It is pictured in the
, .

celebrated B ayeux tapestry T he op ening lines .

of T ennyson s H aro ld al so p o rtray this far

’

famed comet :
15 0 COMETS
of a comet o f an y kind striking the E arth .

More than once the E arth has been kno wn to

pass through the tail of a comet an d in each ,

inst ance few besides the astronomers were aware

of the event In Jun e 1 8 61 a b rillian t comet
.
, ,

appe ared between the E ar th an d the Sun about ,

miles from our planet while its tail ,

stretched way beyo nd us Al l day the heavens .

had a yellowish tinge like that of early dawn ,

an d the Sun shone feebly though the sky was ,

cloudless . At seven o clo ck dusk came on an d

’
,

lamps had to be lighted N o w too a golden .

, ,

yellow disc h alf hidden in a filmy veil appeared

,
-
,

—
in the sky evidently the Sun s rays had pre ’

ven ted its b eing seen earlier This was sup .

p o se d ly th e com et s h e
’
a d A w itn e ss d
. escrib ed
“
it as though a numb er of light h azy clouds were ,

floatin g around a miniature full moon T he .

tail of the comet floated out an d away above it

like a con e of light an d when the head had disap
,

p e a re d be low the ho ri zon the en d of,th e t ail h d

a
just reach ed zenith Nor was this all Strange
. .

shafts of light seemed to hang straight above

the E arth We seemed to look up through a
.
 COMETS 15 1

haze an d it was b elieved the E arth was actually

,

enfo lded in a seco nd tail of the comet N o one .

,

however felt an y discomfort

, .

It is probable that our atmosphere thin as ,

it is woul d seem like a blanket in comp ariso n

,

with the vaporous p articles which make up a

comet s tail T he orbits of certain comets lie
’
.

very close to some of the planets but they seem ,

to exercise no influence wh at ever on the plan

etary b odies A n inst ance is recorded of a
.

comet comi n g so near Jupiter that it w as act

u ally amon g his moons T he comet w as so up
.

set th at he w a s pu ll ed right out of his old p ath

an d set goin g in a n ew o n e But Jupiter an d

.

his s at ellit es showed n o t the slightest in clin

ation of b ein g awar e of the stranger s pres ence
’
.

Some astro nomers think that direful result s

might o ccur should we have a head o n collisio n -

with a com et All agree that probably the air

.

an d w at er would b e in st antly consum ed an d dis

sip a ted a n d a consid erabl e r egion of the E arth s
’
,

surface raised to in candescence But yet an .

other consequenc e equall y malign to human in

ter ests is for es een by Professor Todd who ,
15 2 COMETS
points out that in the much more probable event
,

of an enco unter of the E arth s atmosphere with

’

huge chunks o f a large hydr ocarbon comet nox ,

ious gases might be diffused in such volume as to

render the atmosphere unfi t for breathing an d ,

in this way bring death to all forms of animal

life.

Comet s seem to feel the s ame fascination for

the Sun that moths do for the can dle an d tho se
,

ghosts of the skies which travel in elliptica l p aths

go on wheeling round an d ro und the Rul er of
Light like so many gigantic moths A s fo r .

those which come in upon the vast p arabo las and

hyperbolas to p ay homage to o u r Sun p erchance
,

these m ay make the same obeisance to other

suns thro ughout the stell ar sp ace Certain it
.

is we never see them again; but we kn ow that ,

like the so lar comets their moth like fascination

,
-

for h eat an d light must at length prove their

undoing For as a comet approaches the sun
.
,

“
time after time to b e in vigorated by a good
”
ro astin g
, it must of necessity throw 0 3 a goo d
deal of its bulk in the process of tail making -
.

A s it has no possible means of renewing these

15 4 COM E T S
une as iness was felt lest the world might be
wrecked ! I n P aris a regular p anic ensued
, ,

which was quelled only when the director of the

observatory issued a pamphlet explain ing the
tr ue situation an d showing that the comet in its
n e arest approach to the earth woul d be at a

distance of miles Of course noth

.
,

in g resu lted from the appearance of the dreaded

ghost ! On its next circuit it was n o t seen an d ,

by the time it was due to appear again almost

everybody but the astronomers had forgotten
about Biela s co met They however were o n
’
.
, ,

the watch an d presently the c o met was de

,

tected coming on in wh at seemed a curious pe ar

Sh ape . All the telescopes were brought to be ar
upon it an d as the ghostly messenger drew
,

nearer it was seen that the comet had actually

divided into two portions Long before astron
.
,

omers had established the theory of the life of

comets but this was the first proof actually ac
,

corded to supp o rt their belief that the comets

began to wane by subdivision .

Yo u m ay well im agine how e agerly the next

appear ance of Biela s comet was awaited in
’
 COM E TS 15 5

t onomical circles ! This time the two comets

as r

were again witn es sed but the comp anion comet

,

was now far behind its primary Indeed it was .

,

comin g o n so half heartedl y that a mill ion an d a

-

quarter miles lay between them ! At the ne xt

peri od for return Bi ela s comet was unseen but
,
’
,

no o n e took the matter seriously for it was so un ,

favorably placed th at detection was very un

certain The next period however was sup
.
, ,

posed to Show the comet up unusually well .

Everybody got ready for the visitor but it failed ,

to appear The astronomers concluded that it

.

had gone to pieces somewhere out in the vast

reaches of sp ace and no one ever ex
,

p e cted to he ar anything mor e concerning Biel a s

comet .

At its next p eriod however in 18 72 an , , ,

extraordin ary thing h app ened To be sure no .

one saw anything of the comet but on the night of ,

November 2 7 when the earth cro ssed the trail of

,

the lost one there was a m agnificent shower of

,

shooting stars H ere was the fin al proof for the

.

men of science ! F o r over five hours the earth

lou hed its wa throu h the wreck a e of the
p g y g g
1 56 COMETS
lost met The rain of fire was magnifi cen t
co . .

Four hundred meteors fell in the small sp an o f

a minute an d a half ; an d fir e balls her e an d
-
,

there ap parently as large as the Moon were o h

, ,

served At this time too a large iron meteorite

.
, ,

fell an d was picked up in Mexico

, This may .

o r m ay n o t h ave o n ce fo rmed p art of the doomed

comet .

S weeping the heavens for comets is an inter

esting occup ation an d the heaviest outlay is
‘

in p atience an d perseveran ce Messier a large .

,

disco verer of comets found all of his with a very

,

o rdinar y glass magnifying only five times

, .

P o ns the mo st successful of all comet hunters

,
-
,

who has n o less than thirty to his credit began ,

his search while holding the humble p o sition of

doorkeeper at the observatory at M arseilles .

To day his name outranks that of the director

-

who kindly taught an d enco uraged him .

The residue of comets minute obj ects so small

, ,

that you might carry o ne in your pocket if ,

you could pick it up forms an interestin g sub

,

j ect by itse lf For . thes e bunches of c o me t chips ,

which yo u m ay perh aps h ave regarded as mere

 T HE N E B ULE , o n FIRE M I ST

No more remarkable obj ects are to be seen in

the heaven s th an the h azy celestial clo uds kn o wn

a s n ebule o r fi re m i st
, Likewise too they are
.
, ,

of the utmost interest for they give us a clew

,

to the very b eginn ing of the Un iverse It is .

believed that then ebulae are the star factorie s

from which come suns an d the planets an d their
satellites .

E arly astronomers foun d the n ebulae mo st

puzzlin g At first it was the gen eral opinio n
.

“ ”
that these little clouds as the term n ebula ,

mean s were all star clusters too far away to be

,

seen sep ar at ely Herschel however advan ced

.
, ,

the theory that the clouds of n ebulo us light were

n o t st ar s but were m a de up of huge m as ses of

,

glowin g gas T he in vention of the sp ectroscope

.

proved the truth of thi s supposition an d showed , ,

m oreover the elemen t s involved

, Hydrogen .

makes up the largest p art ; helium has recently

15 8
1 60 N E B ULE , OR
. FIRE M I ST
wid p read than that i n O rio n Tho ugh its
-
e s .

distance from the so lar system is very great its ,

diam eter has been sufficiently calculated to make

certain that a great many ye ars wo uld be re

quired even for light to p ass from one side o f

the nebula to the other It has been estimated
.

that if a map of the Great N ebul a in A n dro m

eda could be made a m ap of the sol ar system
, ,

drawn to scale wo ul d seem a mere speck if laid

,

T he kno wn b
in the heavens reach up
n e ula!

wards o f M an y of these of course , ,

are so sma ll or at such a gre at distance th at

, ,

they are onl y within pho tographic reach of the

g rea t re fl ecting te lescopes such a s the m arv elou s

instruments emplo yed at the Mt Wil son Sola r .

Obser vatory n ear L o s Angeles C alifornia

, , .

N ebu lze ar e of all sh apes an d sizes To quote .

a recent English writer

“
W e h ave some like
, .

brushes others resembling fans rings spindles

, , , ,

—
keyholes ; others like animals a fish a crab an , ,

owl and so on ; but these suggestions are im ag

,

in ative and h ave nothing to do with the real

,

”
pro blem In the S ystem o f the S tars Miss
.

“
C lerke says : In regarding these singular
 NEBULE , OR F I RE MI ST 161

structures we seem to see surges an d spray

flakes of a nebul ous ocean bewitched into sud
,

den immo bility ; o r a rack o f temp est driven -

clouds hanging in the sky moment arily await

,

in g the trans fo rming violence of a fresh onset .

Sometim es continents of p ale light are sep arated

by narrow straits of comp arative darkness ; else
where o bscure sp aces are hemmed in by luminous
”
inlets an d channels .

For convenience in classification astronomers ,

divide the nebula in to six classes based on their ,

various forms : ( 1 ) annular nebula 2 ) elliptic ,

n ebul a spir l n b l pl net ry

,( )
3 a e u a ( )
4 a
, a n e

bula ( 5 ) n ebul ous stars ( 6 ) irregular nebula

, , ,

“ ”
for the most part very large If it be realized
.
,

“
says Chambers that the word annular is de
,
‘ ’

rived from the L atin word annu lus a ring a , ,

ready clue will be had as to the general form of

”
the first type of neb ula .I n the con stellatio n
of Lyra m ay be seen under telescopic power
, ,

one of the most marvelous of these gigantic rings

o f lumino us gas .To judge of the size of this
rin g B all tells us that a train starti ng fro m one
, ,

side of this nebula an d traveling 60 miles an

,

hour might rush o n fo r a tho usan d years with

,
16 2 NEBULE , OR FIRE MI ST
unabated sp eed an d then mo st certainl y the
'

journey across this vast immensity w oul d n o t

“ ”
have ended Nor do I ventur e to say he ,

continu es what ages must elapse er e the ter

,

minus at the other side of the ring n ebul a would

”
be reached . The Great Nebula in An dro meda ,

“ ”
is a specimen o f elliptic nebula App aren tly ,

“
s ays o n e authority it is composed of a n umber
,

of p artially distinct rings with kn ots o f con dens

,

in g nebulosi ty as if comp anion stars in the m ak

,

in g
. Its spectrum shows that it is not gaseous ,

still n o t elescope has y et p roved competent to

”
resolve it . Spir al n ebula show su ch won derful
whorls of n ebulo sity that they are frequen tly
”
called whirlpool n ebula an d this term seems ,

to descr ibe th em fittin gly They are stellar in .

character that is like the stars Their subst ances

, .

ar e —
in term in gl ed gases liquid s an d solids .
,

Pl an et ary nebu la are so call ed b ecause they show

a roun dish di sc like the large plan ets on ly
, ,

much fainter They are mo stly gaseous in com

.

po sition Nebulous st ar s a r e tho se hidden in

.

lum in ous fog Most of these can b e seen only

.

through the telescope .

It is as impossible to measure the dist ance o f

1 64 NEBULE , OR FIRE M I ST
in color are largely o f hydro gen gas A few .

o f the white ones are reso lvable in the high

po wer tele scopes into masses o f sep arate stars .

For this reason it was believed in the beginning

,

that all the nebula co uld thus be reso lved if o nly

enough tele scop ic po wer co uld be secured .

Strangely enough the n ebula seem to be the

,

most numer ous in that p art o f the heavens where

there are the fewest stars It has been found.
,

to o that these vast lumino us masses are mo ving

,

through the heavens at a speed about equal to

those of the stars The bright nebula in Draco
. ,

for ex am ple seems coming in towards the E arth

,

at the r ate of fo rty miles per second On the .

other hand the Orion nebula is recedin g at the

,

rate of eleven miles each second A s yet none .

of the nebula have been discovered to h ave an y

axi al motion .

There are many difi culties however in the , ,

way of obtain ing accurate details concern ing o b

j ects so indistinct a n d remote Swift as l

.igh t

travels its rays require at least a thousan d years

,

to bring their message from that far o ff mass - .

If at the time of the Norm an Conquest of Eng

land the starry cl usters of Orion had grown dim
, ,
 NEBUL E , OR FIRE MIST 1 65

we should but now be finding it out Through .

the centuries their di ff used light woul d have per

sisted like wraiths .

To explain how the stars ( the suns of sp ace ) ,

an d the planets a s well have been formed two

, , ,

theories have b een advanced an d although the se ,

differ in many resp ects bo th begin with the ,

nebula In the fir st of these called the nebular

.
,

hyp o thesis the ide a is that once far back many

, ,

hundreds of millions of years ago all the matter ,

that now makes up the Universe was scattered

very thinly through the unlimited vastness of cc
lestial sp ac e . Then as now the p articl es of m at
, ,

ter attracted o n e another according to N ewt on s

’

well established laws Pr esently centers of

.

attr action were formed an d these centers ,

dr ew unto th emselves other p articles of m atter .

Thus by the inward falling of ma tter an d the ,

fr iction caused by the collision of p articles heat ,

was formed an d the m aterial m asses grew into

,

vast nebula which filled all the heavens with

,

luminous fire mist Mi ll ions of years p assed

. ,

an d sti ll the process went on until finally great ,

nebular Whirlpools were set in motion an d began ,

revolving with inconceivable swiftness on their

'

1 66 NEBULE , OR FIRE MIST

axes The temperature ro se terrifically at
.

centers where co ndensation became greatest ,

an d presently va st numbers o f suns were formed .

What followed next we have determin ed only

so far as o ur own sun is concern ed but there is ,

every reason to sup po se that other suns m ay have

developed solar systems by re ason of their im
mense centrifugal force sloughing o ff great rings
of nebulosity which later formed planets an d ,

these in turn their satellites just as is supposed

,

to have been the case in o ur own instance as we ,

have already seen To be sure we must bear

.
,

in mind that all this is merely an hypothesis

that is a theory It has never been altogether
, .

proved nor is it likely that it ever will be How

, .

ever man y gr eat min d s h av e contr ibut ed to this

,

theory an d it is the o n e most universal ly accep ted

,

to a ccount for the scien tific d evelopm en t o f the

U niver se Rec en t astron o mer s however fin d

.
, ,

thi s theory still op en to serious obj ections .

T he second theory an d mor e recen t o n e is

, ,

known as the P la n etesim al H yp o thesis This .

begins with some remote an cestor of our solar

syst em a mo r e or less co n d en s ed c en tr al sun
, ,

h avin g a slo w rotation an d surrounded by a vast

 N EB UL A! , OR F IRE MIST 1 67

swarm of planetoids A ll these tiny bodies

.

followed an elliptica l p ath around their sun .

T he swirling masses s een in the sp iral nebula

to day ar e app arently of this typ e
-
Now let u s
.

—
see what next happ ened if this theo ry is
co rr ect .O ut of this great c en tral mass our o wn
sun slowly developed its body bein g increased
,

by many of the near by p articles a dhering to it

-
,

or fa lling in upon it M ean while the whirling

.
,

nebula co ntinu ed to sweep up outlying p ar ticles

an d throw th em into globul ar sh ap e — un til th ey
became the planets which in their tu rn whirled
about the Sun Still smaller p articles were
.

swept up an d molded in to the s atellites o f the

planet s such as our Moon
, .

The more we reflect on the marvelo us wonders

an d p erformances of the n ebula the more ,

boundless an d deathless our Un iver se becomes .

W e h ave gon e far in the three hun dred year s of

p atien tly figuring o ut o ur own position in the
he avens but unquestion ably we are on ly o n the
,

threshold o f the m iracles yet to b e discerned .

There are eviden ces going to show that our own

solar system was on ce a nebulous mass coo l an d
d ark widely scattered an d revolving but slowly
, ,
.
168 NEB ULA) , OR FIRE M I S T
E ven now the vast spaces of sky m ay co nceal
many such masses Since th ey do not glow with
.

light we have no means of locating them We .

can but sp eculate Likewise too many of

.
, ,

the most familiar nebula h ave gro wn several

times brighter in the years they h ave be en under
observation When w e consider that these lat
.

ter en ormous masses of gas many m any times

, ,

the area of our own solar sy stem ar e sailing o n

,

in an endless j ourney through infinite sp ace just ,

as the stars an d comets are we can but bow in

,

r ever ence an d awe before the Mighty In telli

gence whose hand is on the helm and who alone

can answer the queries W hith
er ?
1 70 SHOOTING STARS
of one or mo re meteors W e should witn ess the.

s am e phenomena during the day also were it , ,

not for the sunlight It has been estimated that

.

the dust of meteors falls to the E arth

every twenty four hours having a weight co l
-
,

lectively o f no less than 400 tons At this rate .

,

it will be seen that the mass o f the E arth must

g r adu a lly be growing larger Not very notice .

“
ably in the course of a ye ar perhaps ; bu t every
little makes a mickle Our E ar th has been
.

hoarding up meteor dust since the beginning of

Time Ages and ages ago it m ay h ave been
.

much smaller than it is at present In fact as .

,

“
B all po ints out A large p r oportion of this globe
,

o n which we dwell m ay h ave been d eriv ed from

the little shooting stars which inc essantly rain in

”
U pon its s urfa ce M oreover this meteor dust
.
,

“ ”
form s no little p art of the dust motes we see
floatin g in every b eam of sunshin e In tropical .

region s just b efore sunset in sprin g an d b e

, ,

fore sunr is e in autumn m ay b e seen a pearly ,

r adian ce archin g upward from the sun in a br oad ,

“
ribbon like b elt This is called the Z o diacal
-
.

”
L ight . It is formed from tin y p articles of
meteoric matter — “ ”
diffused dust held by the at
 SHOOTING S TARS 17 1

tr action of the Sun Opposite it in the heavens

.

is the counter glow or G egenschein S o metim es

-
' '
.

in Euro p ean coun tries this stran ge m eteoric light

is seen extending upward like a cone app endage
to the Sun .

Usually if o n e is o bservan t enough meteo rs

, ,

m ay be s een f alling in gro u ps of twos an d threes ,

n o w h ere now th er e ; an d at c er t ain p er iods of the

,

year notably in the mon ths of April August

, , ,

an d Novemb er they occ asionall y come down in

,

showers as we shall p resen tly see Always

, .

more m eteor s fall in the small hours between

midnight an d six in the mornin g than at an y
other time T he reason is v ery clearly ex
.

plained by the fact th at when o n e runs rapidly

in a rain storm the chest b ecomes wetter th an the
b ack for the reason that the advance of the body
,

meets the drops Likewise in its r evolution

.
,

about the S un the forward p art of the E arth is

,

stru ck by more meteors than an y other portion .

T he E arth in this instan ce m ay b e likened

, ,

to a great fisherman H er air blanket is the .

n et in which the m eteors b ecome ent angled an d

th enceforward their care er is brief indeed For .

—
countless ages these little bodies chips fro m
172 SHOOTING STARS

thro ugh s p ace continued in the imm ense o rbit of

,

th eir p arent an d covering probably no less th an

,

twenty miles per seco nd W e can hardly co n .

ceive of such an en ormous sp eed .

If a sho oting star shoul d decide to encircle the

E ar th it could travel the
, mil es an d get
back to its starting point in a little over twenty
minutes No pro3cetile co uld be fired from o n e
.

of o ur long ran ge guns that could keep p ace with

-

it ; an d of course the resistan ce of our atmosphere

would be to o great for such a proj ectile .

It is when it reaches the E arth s n et th at the ’

“ ”
meteor s swan song begins ; for this is what its
’

little flash really means It is the death note o f .

the meteo r Travelin g at such an enormous

.

p ace its speed meets with a t errific resistance

,

in the air blanket heat is kin dled an d p r esently

, ,

the little p articles which m ake up the meteor

turn to gas an d flash o ff in vapor And then .

,

an d then only do w e see the m eteor ; for it is

,

too small to be detected even by the largest teles

co p es an d we get no hint o f it until at the v ery
,

moment it begins to be destroyed when its vis

A
’

ib ilit be
y g in s And it is gone. in a n in stant !
1 74 SHOOTING STARS
m aticians pointed o u t that the meteo rs traveled
a lengthened orbit much more like that of a
,

comet than a pla net Then came the mir ac

.

ulcus meteoric shower o f Novem ber 1 8 33 when , ,

”
from the terrible rain of fire an d brim stone ig ,

n o r an t p eo ples everywhere fan cied the en d of the

worl d was at hand For nine hours the st ars fell

.

“
like flakes of snow , varying in size from
a moving po int or phosphoresc en t lin e to gl o b es

of the M oon s diam eter

’ ”
As tronomers were
.

quick to note this ph eno meno n was ex actly thirty

four years from the tim e of a similar sho wer
which had appe ared from the same constella
—
tion th at o f L eo ; moreover it was observed ,

that the app arent orbit of these meteor s was the

p ath traveled by Temple s comet Likewise it ’
.

w as found th at the August shower s the P erseids , ,

pursued the same track as Swift s comet ( known ’

“
a s the bright comet of 18 62 an d sus
,

p ic io n s gr ew th at comet s an d m eteors had some

well established affinity T he o rbit of Swift s

-
.
’

comet runs way out b eyon d the plan et Neptune ,

making a p eriod of 12 0 years necessary to co m

lete its circuit Obvi usly no r eal proof coul d
p . o

be had from it but in the cas e of Temple s comet

,
’
 SH OOTING STA RS 1 75

it was not hard to r eckon the date for another

meteoric display which Newton fixed as the ,

evening of November 13 an d the morning o f ,

November 1 4 1 8 66 an d which subsequently

, ,

c ame o ff ex actly as scheduled in a glorious dis

play well calcul ated to delight the hearts of the
,
-

a stronom er s But it was not until the Bielid

.

show er of N o vember 1 8 7 2 which we h ave al

, , ,

ready recorded markin g the di sintegration of

,

B iela s comet that the world was s atisfied th at

F
’
,

meteors were no more nor less than the small

chips an d dust p articles of comets which are ,

thrown o ff by reason of the burning o ut process -

ex ercis ed by the Sun an d the attraction of the

plan ets O n e other puzzling question yet re

.

mained : Why was it that the E arth app arently

hit some of these meteors every year but onl y ,

on ce in a certain numb er of y ears seemed to run

right in to the midst of them ? This problem too , ,

was solved as follows ,

“
O n e has only to im agine s ays one authority , ,

a swarm of such m eteors at fi rst h astening

busily along their orbit a great cluster alto ,

gether then by the near neighborh o od of some

, ,

plan et or by some other disturbing causes ; be

, ,
1 76 SH OO T IN G S TA RS

ing dr awn leavin g stragglers behind un til

o ut, ,

at la st ther e might be so me all roun d the p ath ,

but o nly thin ly scattered while the busy impo rt ,

an t cl uster that fo rmed the nucleus was still

much thicker than any other p ar t N o w if the .

,

o r bit that the meteors followed cut the orbit or

p a th of the E arth at one point then every tim e ,

the E arth came to what we m ay call the level

cr ossing she must run into s ome of the s tr aggler s ,

an d if the chief p art of the swarm too k thirty

three years to get round ( as in the cas e of the

Leonids ) then o nce in abo ut thirty thre e years -

the E arth must strike right into it This would .

account for the wond erful di splay So long .

drawn out is the thickest p art of the swarm that

-

it t akes a year to p ass the poin ts at the level

cr o ssing If the E arth strikes it near the fr ont
.

one year she m ay come right round in time to

,

strike into the re ar p art of the swarm the n ex t

year so that we m ay get fine displays two years

,

running about every thirty three years ” 1

-
.

It is p robable that there ar e thousands o f

meteoric currents comprising the residue o f
,

burned o ut co mets in our solar system an d

-
, ,

1 G E M itten, in
. .
“
The Bo o k of Stars
.
178 S HOO T I N G S TARS
meteorites belo ngs to the province of the chemist
an d the mineralogist rather than to the astr o n o

mer but so far their analysis has n o t brought

,

to light any new elements When seen at night .

meteorites have a gorgeous appe arance They .

are like huge fir eb alls followed by lum inous

,

trains of vapor In the daytime the light o f

.

both fireb all an d train is largely los t against

the deep sky b ackgroun d an d the v apor appe ar s,

only as a bright cloud A s the solid body hurls

.

along a deep continuous roa r is heard ending

, , ,

in one grand explo sion or perh aps in several ,

smaller explosions and fin ally the mass m ay

,

plunge deep into the earth or it m ay burst into ,

a numb er of tiny fragm ents to b e scatt ered far

an d wide .

Since the beginning of Time stories of stones

an d iron missiles hurled from h eaven by the

wrath of the gods have been current but it w as ,

not until 1 8 03 wh en a great aerolite fell in

,

France that scientists b egan to accept the t ales

,

in the light of truth T hen astr onomers vio

.

len tly disagreed M an y of them even such a n

.
,

eminent authority as Sir Robert B all held that ,

meteo rites were the residue hurled from volcano es

 SHOOTING STA RS 1 79

when the world was in the making an d kept in ,

subj ection by the Sun until the E arth came so

,

near them that they coul d not resist dr opping

do wn upon her Others argued that the pro .

j ec til es c am e from the Moon or the Sun Sti ll .

others considering that in only two instances

,

meteorit es had been known to fall in met eoric

showers and then with no real proof of probable
,

connection insist ed on connecting them with the

,

planetoids There were unanswerable obj cc

.

tions however to al l of these theories an d a t

, , ,

length it was fully determin ed th at the meteorites

‘

“
were in truth large swarms or shoals of m e
”
teorie p articles sep arated from their p arent by
vaporization in the rapid journey through sp ace .

B all estimates that at least 100 grand met eor

ites fa ll to the E arth every year But there .

are few accounts of eye witness es of th ese -

marvelous sp ectacles ; nor on the other h and do , ,

we r ead of dam ages caus ed by the downfall of

huge missiles T he l argest meteor ite on record
.

is probably the imm ense mass called A hnighito

( th e t ent ) w eighing ,thirty s ev en an d o -
n e h a lf -

tons It was discovered in northern Greenl and

.
,

by Lieuten an t Peary, in 18 94 With its two .

1 80 S HOOT IN G S TAR S
“
sm al ler mp anio ns the Wo man an d the
co , ,

”
Dog it had long formed the sour ce of iron fo r
,

the Eskimos who held th at the three masses had

,

been hurled from the heavens by the evil sp irits .

“ ”
The Ten t was brought to New York in 1 897 ,

an d n o w rests under the entr an ce arch of the

Museum of Natural History Humbold t es .

timated the diameter of the ordinary large size

fireballs from 5 00 to fe et Such balls .

frequently rival the moon in brightness an d ,

leave behind them a lo ng comet like train of -

light . On e or two instances h ave been noted

where the train of a fireball remained in full
view for half an ho ur after the meteorite itself
had vanished due it is supposed to phosphor
,

escence .

Amazing as are these great detonating fir e

balls d arting without warning upon us from
,

the depths of space as though hurl ed from the

,

mighty arm s of the angered go d of the thunder ,

they yet fin d their rival s in sheer magic in their

small kindred which weigh at best only a few
,

ounces These latter are truly the final marvels

.

o f the solar system They show us our S un in

.

a new light We see him as a condescending

.
 C O LO R E D AND D O UB LE ST ARS
No doubt if an y o n e asked you the color
of the stars you would answer white without
,

an instant s h esit ation But suppose you care

’
.
,

fully sc an the heavens the first clear night : yo u

can not help s eein g th at some st ars show r eddish

o r yellowish t ints others shine with a steely

,

blue light Looked at thr ough a t elescop e th ese

.

stars resolve themselves into brilliant individual

color s : the red st ars are bright red copp er r ed , ,

“ ”
blood red glo w mg like a live coal etc Like
-
, , .

wis e the blue green an d yellow stars shine out

, ,

in va rious tin t s an d shades of the mo st vivid

ty p es Ther e is a message in this wealth of
.

color which the sp ect ro scop e readily a ids the

,

a str onomer to read It tells him of wh a t

.

elements thes e v ar iou s s uns a r e co m pos ed : thus

the r ed st ar s ar e l ar gely c arb o n ; the blue a r e

hydrogen ; the yellow on es show a mixtur e o f

elements like our Sun ; an d so o n ..

182
COLORED AND DOUBLE STAR S 18 3

But the most in teresting thing about these

colored st ars is th at th ey a re n early a lways

dou ble ; that is they are m ad e up of two stars

,

so close together that the naked eye is unable

to sep arate them At first astronomer s could
.

not believe what the glas s told them They .

thought th at th ese stars seemed to be doubles

only because they happ ened to be nearly in the
same lin e of sight from the ear th It was sup
.

posed that o n e st ar might easily b e m any millions

of miles in sp ace b ehin d the other S ever al such
.

p air s of st ars were alr eady kn own to exist in

the h eavens ; astronomers termed them o p tical

do u bles. C ertain reason s however argued

, ,

against cla ssin g the colored doubles wi th th ese

stars a n d the p roblem stood unsettled until 18 02

, ,

when Sir Willi am H erschel pr o ved th at the

puzzling doubles were in truth j ust wh at they
seemed They were saved from com i n g together
.

by mutu al attraction an d ending in an in glorious

—
crash the chief argument against believin g in
—
two st ar s so clos ely associated bec aus e both
were in motion o n e r evo lvin g around the other
, .

They w ere confin ed at cert ain distances by the

laws of gravitation j ust as o ur Sun an d the
,
184 C O LORED AND DO UBLE S TAR S

p la nets are To
. distinguish this cl ass of doubles

from those which merely seemed to be doubles ,

Herschel suggested calling them binary stars ,

an d this n ame still sta nds .

M any of the brightest st ars in the sky are

binaries Alpha Centauri o ur nearest fixed
.
-
,

star , you r ememb er is in cluded among these

, .

I t is made up of two very bright stars which ,

take eighty o n e years to tr avel ro und their orbit

-
.

A t their closest point they com e as n ear to

—
gether as S aturn is to the Sun 8 8 6 millions of
miles ; wh en farthest their distance is far beyo nd
that of Neptune from us Sirius the brightest
.
,

st ar in the sky an d C astor

, o n e of the well
,

“ ”
known Twins in the constellation of Gemini ,

a re two other doubl es ea sily obs er ved by the

smallest telescop e .

C astor is o n e of the most familiar of the double

st ars an d a stronom ers lon g ago di scovered th a t
,

o n e st ar is r evolvin g slowly about the oth er — so

slowly th at s everal hundred years are required

for a co mplete circuit This is not so surprising
.

wh en we r ememb er that C astor is so r emote from

us that the two stars instead o f almost touchin g
,

each other are reall y hundreds of millions o f

186 COLORE D AND DO UBLE STAR S
others are composed of stars equal in light giv -

—
ing power tw in suns Some progress swiftly .

round their orb its so me go slowly ; indeed so

, ,

slowly that during the century they have been

un der obs ervation only the very faintest sign

of movement has been detected ; an d in other

systems which w e are bound to suppose double
, ,

the stars are so slow in their movements that

”
n o progress se ems to h ave b een mad e at all .

An especially interesting feature about double

stars is that the two p artners are often of co n
tr astin g colors . The most beautiful ex ample
within r ange of the or din ary telescop e is B eta
“ ”
Cygni in the con stellation known as T he Swan .

T he l arger star is redd ish yellow a n d the smaller

-

o n e s a p phi re blu e
-
An tares alr eady m en tioned
.
,

as a fi ery r ed st ar in Scor p io o n e of the Z odi a c ,

con stell ation s has a small green com p anion

, .

O ther double st ars show pa ir s of yellow an d

r o se r ed
-
o lden an d azu r e orange an d pu r ple
, g , ,

oran ge an d lilac copp er color an d blue a pple

,
-
,

green an d cherry r ed an d so o n In the South

-
, .

ern H emisphere there is a cluster cont aining so

many stars of brilliant color that Sir John H er
“ ”
schel nam ed it T he Jeweled Cluster H ere .
COLORED AND DOUBLE STA RS 18 7

are to b e seen comp anion suns in cre am white -

,

rose color lilac russet fawn buff an d olive hu es

-
, , , , ,

in endless numbers .

Imagine o ur sun sharin g his kingdom with

a royal purple comp anion ! But stay could o ur ,

plan ets exist under the pull of two suns in o p

p o si te di rections ? A stonishing a s th es e sug
gestions seem it is cert ain that con dition s even
,

more am azing exist in some of these double stell ar

systems For besides th ese glowin g suns they
.
, ,

contain huge dark bodies which m ay very well

“
be p lanets In deed says o n e author ity In
.
, ,

some cases the dark body which we cannot see

m ay even b e larger than the shining o n e through ,

which alone w e can know anything of it Here .

we h ave a n ew id ea a h int th at in some of these

,

systems th ere m ay be a mighty earth with a

.

small er sun goin g round it as m en imagined ,

our sun went around the earth before the real

”
truth was found out In the famous quadruple
.

syst em of Z eta C ancr i thr ee bright st ar s ar e

-

suppos ed to revolve roun d a d ark body which ,

a pp ears to b e by far the largest of the four .

So far as we know many of these stellar ,

bo ed i s m a y be th e h o m es o f hu m an bein g s If .
1 88 COLORED AND DOUBLE STARS
so , wh at an endl ess variety o f celestial sights
must delight the eyes of a dweller in this p art
o f the Uni vers e ! P r octo r in his interesting
,

work T he E xp ense o f H eaven pictures a world

, ,

where twin suns o n e blue an d the other o range

, ,

“ ”
rise together to produce double day or per ,

chance as the orange sun sets the blue o n e rises ,

“
an d there is no night T he skies mus t be ex
“
ceedin gly beautiful he tells us
, Our clouds
.

h ave their silver lining bec ause it is the light o f

the Sun which illumines them Our summ er
.

sky presents glowing white cl o uds to our view ,

an d at oth er times w e see the various sh ad es

between whiten ess an d an almo st black hu e .

But imagine how beautiful the sc ene must

be when thos e p arts of the cloud which would
otherwis e appear as simply darker shine with
a full er blu e light or with a fuller orange ligh t .

How gorgeous again must b e the coloring of

the clouds which fleck the sky when o ne or other
”
sun is s etting.

Fro m double an d multiple stars it is but a

s tep to grou p s an d clusters of suns an d h ere
,

again we have a picture of another system o f

worlds T he Pleiades or Seven Sisters is the

.
190 COLORED AND DOUBL E STAR S
I magine what it would be like to live on a
planet situated in the middle of a star group
such as the Herculean cluster ! Such a world
would be b athed in perpetual day One sun af
.

ter an other would bla ze its fiery way across the

heavens ; an d if by chance the larger on es shoul d
give way to a semblance of night then their sky
,

would be brilli antly pointed by countless stars of

the first magnitude . But it is doubtful if their
sky would ever be dim enough to see even these .

Their astronomers wo ul d be in utter ignorance

of the stars an d plan ets as we know th em .

I n thinking of the stars as suns n atur ally we

,

h ave pictured them as suns of the sam e model

as our own but we see n o w how erron eous such
,

a supposition wo uld be . I n deed there are so

,

many di fferent groups and double suns in the

heavens th at it is possible that solitary suns
,

such as ours are the exception and n o t the rule

in the vast r eaches of the stellar universe More.

an d more it is bor n e in upon us th at the world in

which w e live is but o n e kin d amid an in finit e

v ari ety of worlds. W e are lost in the contem
p l atio n of a U ni v ers e without bounds ,a Uni
“
verse in which our E arth sinks irito an abso
lutely insignificant atom .
 !

T HE M I LK Y WAY
P ur e leagues t
o f s a rs fro m ga ris h light withdrawn
h d el sti l l e w k p l
B e in c e a ac -
or a e as f oa m,
I thi k betw e the m idn ight
n e n an d the dawn
So uls p ss thr o ugh yo u to thei
a r myster i us h o me
o .

-
Willia m H a milto n H ayn e .

M ILTON lso spoke of the Milky W ay as

a
”
T he way to Go d s et ernal house Th e Norse
’
.

m an saw it as the p ath to Valhalla over which ,

traveled the souls of her oes who fell in b attle .

In H iawa tha we are told how Nokomis taught

,

the little Indian lad about the st ars that

in the heavens
Sho wed th b o d white ro ad i he
e r a n a ven,

P thw y o f the gh sts the sh do ws

a a o , a ,

R u i g st ight c o s the he v s
nn n ra a r s a en ,

C o wd d w ith th gh sts the sh do ws

r e e o , a ,

T o the Ki gdo m o f P o m h
n ne a ,

T o the l d o f the h e
an fte r ea r.

In Sweden the peasantry sp eak of the Milky

Way as the Win ter Street an d Edith M
“ ”
, .

19 1
192 THE M IL KY W A Y
Thoma s has woven this thought into so me

beautiful verses b egin nin g

,

Silen t with star dust yo n der it lies

-
,

T he Win ter Street s f ir an d s whi te ;

, o a o

Win din g lo ng thro ugh the bo un dless skies

a ,

D o wn hea venly vale up he venl y h eight

, a .

Ancient peoples of var ious races have likened

the Milky W ay to a broad river It was into .

this stre am the river of heaven th at the burning

, ,

chariot of the Sun was plunged on the occasion

of Phaeton s mad drive O ur English ancesto rs
’
.

often spoke o f the Milky W ay as J acob s“ ’

”
L adder . S o we might go on reco un tirg one
symbol after another that has been suggest ed
to different peoples since time began B ut .

gran der than an y of these fanciful tho ughts is

the real truth of this m agnificen t arch across

the zenith of o ur night time skies It is a -

.

mighty circle of light science t ells us com

, ,

posed o f worlds h eaped on worlds suns towerin g ,

beyond suns in a profusion th at startles the

,

imagin ation an d awes the soul .

For centuries the galax y as this mysteriou s ,

circle is scientifically t ermed has been an object ,

of close interest among the astronomers .

 THE M IL KY W A Y . 193

Ar istotle thought that it might be due to atmos

p he r ic vapo r s Another.e arly student inclined
to the absur d notio n that the gal axy was the
sh ado w c ast by the E arth on the h eavens Soon . ,

however scientists began to feel sure that it w

, as

a broad p ath of st ars to o far away to be sep

arately seen an d when Ga lileo turned his newly

,

invented telescope upon it this supposition was ,

found to be the true o n e But Galileo s tele .

’

scope w as far from powerful enough to resolve

the galaxy Certain individual stars stoo d out
.

quite cle arly b ut b ack of these was the sam e

,

puzz ling field o f misty light suggesting a ,

breadth an d depth of the stell ar universe hitherto

unguessed Subsequent t elescopes an d phot o
.

graphs have still left man y things about the

galaxy unsolved As Mr Gore most fittingly
. .

“
observes : T he Copernicu s of the sidereal sys
tem has not yet arrived an d it m ay be many,

ye ars or even centuries before this great pro blem

”
is s atisfacto rily solved .

We do know however th at the Milky W ay

, ,

—
is a mighty star stream that is a system of st ars
which seem to us to be connected but which ,

may yet be sep arated by millions o f miles Al l .

1 94 THE MILKY WAY
ar e mighty orbs suns of the s ame type as o ur
,

own Great Ruler M any of them vastly larger

.

th an he others smaller E ach of them we ar e

, .
,

certain possible centers of planetary systems

, ,

an d the homes of human bein gs Small indeed.

would be our own place in the Universe if viewed

from this celestial highway In truth neither .
,

o ur E arth nor an y of the other pl anets in our

solar system could be seen Our Sun if vis .

,

ible at all would be nothing but a faint a very

, ,

faint star Indeed its light might be extin

.
,

g uishe d
, a n d all the hum a n race as w e kn ow it
, ,

wiped o ut without causing an y stir in th at dis

,

tant p art of the Universe Professor B all tells

.

“
us th at in this event : All the stars of h eaven
would continue to shine as before Not a poin t .

in o n e o f the const ellation s would be altered n o t ,

a var i ation in the brightn es s n o t a ch ange in the

,

hue of an y star wo uld b e noticed T he thou .

s an ds o f n ebula an d clust ers would b e absolutely

unaltered ; in fact the tot al extinction of the Sun
,

would b e hardly remarked in the newsp apers

published in the Plei ades or in Orion There .

might p ossibly b e a little line somewhere in an

odd cor ner to the efi ect th at Mr So an d S o
’ ‘
- -
.
,
196 THE M I LKY WAY
disconn ected masses or pools of nebula lying ,

”
p arallel to the general flow of the stream .

Photographs an d telesco Pic views of the

Milky W ay show remarkable rifts an d chas ms
which until just recently were regarded a s
glim pses of the depths of sp ace beyond Now .

scientists have concluded that this d arkness be ‘

”
hind the stars is in truth not sp ace at all bu t
, , ,

that it marks the presence of no n lumino u s -

bodies According to Professor B arnard o f

.
,

“
the Yerkes O b servator y they ar e sim ply clou d
,

masses of dark nebula whose light has failed

”
them or which never had an y light
, O n e of .

thes e app arent rifts in the Milky W ay m ay b e

plainly noted with th e naked eye It has been .

“
known to navigators for ages as the coal sac
an d is about eight degr ees long by fi ve d egree s

bro ad On ly o n e star m ay be m arked in this

.

sp ace unaided but several show up under the

,

t elescope .

T he Milky W ay has b een termed the groun d

plan of the Un iverse It has long been no
.

ticed that there are more st ars in the region

of the heavens near to its broad p ath than there
are in the opposite dire ction In short the st ar s
.
,
 THE MILKY WAY 197

increase up to the galax y which seems to be a

,

bro ad highway for stellar clustering It is .

app ar ently the equatori al zone of the stellar uni

vers e The stars here appear to b e closer to

.

g e ther th an in an y o th er p a rt of the he ave n s but ,

this m ay be due to circumstances afl ectin g our

'

lin e of vision Sin ce this celestial p ath arches

.

about us it is not u nlikely that our Sun is hims elf

,

a m ember of the Milky W ay Sir Jo hn H er

.

schel who made a study of this portion of the

,

stell ar sy stem from both hemispheres inclined to ,

“
the belief t hat our situation as sp ectators is
sep arated on all sides by a consid erable interv al

from the dens e body of stars composing the

”
Ga laxy . Tim e perhaps m ay s atisfactorily
, ,

solve this stupendous problem but at present ,

nothing seems more unlikely .

A recent investigator likens the general shape

of the stell ar universe to that o f the Great N ebul a
in Andromed a Furthermore scientists have
.
,

argued that while Sp ace is undoubtedly bound

,

less an d infinite there is a defin ite number of

,

stars or suns possibly , or more .

Were the num ber of s tars as infinite as sp ace

itself the whole heavens would shine with a
1 98 THE MILKY WAY
brightness equal to that of o ur Sun B ut even .
,

granting that the stellar system may have

boun daries in sp ace it is yet of a vastn ess
,

entirely outside the comprehension o f man .

Supposing the Milky W ay to be the middle zo ne

of the stellar universe mathematicians have cal
,

culated th at the near est sun at the outer edge

o f this broad p ath is at a distance th at must b e

expressed way up in the seventh fam ily o f

n um er icals thus
,

A n y att empt to realize the imm ense distance

m arked by such a specul ative guide p o st sets
o ur h ead s swimm ing ! Much less then can w e , ,

essay to me asur e the furth er breadth of this

marvelous stellar sp ace And yet this is bu t

.

a beginn ing If w e would comprehend the who le

.

Univers e astronomers say that there m ay b e

,

o th er st ellar universes out in illimit able sp ace ;

that is what we know as the st ar world may

,

have neighboring star worlds an d these their ,

neighbors away out in the Infin ite B eyond .

“
T he num ber of st ars an d systems re ally exi st
ing but invisible to us m ay be practically in
, ,

“
finite s ays M r Go re
,
”
. Could we speed our
.

flight through sp ace on an gel wings beyond the

 ! I

T HE C ON STE LLAT I O NS
MARK T WAIN once o bserved that the thing
that puzzled him the most abo ut astro nomy was
how we found o ut the names of the star s P er .

haps you re ader m ay have wondered a bout this

, ,

very point yourself ! Evidently imaginatio n

played a large p art in chr istening the stars fo r ,

the heavenly group s or co nstellations as w e

, ,

c all them bear the names of figures an d animals

, ,

for the most p art so wildly fan ciful th at it is

impossible to conceive how an y o n e could have
gone so far out of the way to imagine anythin g
so ridiculous An d yet beneath these figures
.
, ,

wild an d fanciful as they are lie many beautiful

,

an d enn obli n g id eas which are of interest not

,

onl y for th eir r eal merit but as sidelights on the

,

earn est efl o rts m ade by the early p eopl es to un

'

derstan d wh at was to them the most appealin g

—
problem the relation of the E arth to the
heavens .
 TH E CO N STE L LA T I O N S 2 01

The word co nstella tio n is made up of two

Latin words : can which means together an d
, ,

stella me aning stars

, In plain English then
.
, ,

the word co nstella tion means stars to gether .

Almost all nations have ar ranged the stars into

constellations but it is supposed th at the Greeks
,

mapped o ut the geography of the heavens which

is now used years befo re Christ dr awing
, ,

largely on the record s of the gods an d heroes

associated with the voy age of the fabled ship

A rgo That they also followed the leadin g of

.

the Chaldeans and the early Egypti ans is proven

by the fact that no less than fo rty eight of the -

co nstellations numbering all of the largest an d

,

best known groups had already been recorded

,

by Pto lemy more th an 600 years previous

,
.

Therefore the actual d ate of the invention of

,

a name for even one of thes e popul ar groups

is not known ; we only kn ow that they h ave been

thus called so long that as the legal lights ,

would say the memory of m an runn eth not to

,

the contr ary Consequently though we find it ,

difficul t to picture the likeness of a bear a ,

bull a fish the most agile of hunters or what

, , ,

not in the scattered groups of stars which make

,
202 TH E C O N S T ELLAT I O N S
up the eighty or ninety constellations now cata
logued in the stellar world we still clin g to the ,

old names as a matter of convenience in refer

If the axis of the earth were straight up and

down in regard to the plane of the E arth s orbit ’

round the Sun then we should always see the

,

sam e set of stars regardless of time an d seaso n

, .

but as the axis is tilted slightly in winter in the ,

Northern Hemisphere we see more of the sky

to the southward th an we can in the summer ;
while in the Southern Hemisphere far more .

st ars to the north can be seen at this perio d .

A lways however there is one fixed point in

, ,

each hemisphere round which the oth er stars

seem to swing This is the point directly over
.

the pol es H
. appily too ther e is a,
bright st
,
a r
just where the North Pole would seem to touch
the sky could it b e dr awn ou tw ard This i s .

’
the Pole St ar For ages it was the mariner s
.

onl y comp ass :

C o asti
g th e
ny ,
k ept th e l n d with in th eir ken
a ,
”
k w
An d n e n o n o rth b ut w he n the P o le sta r sh -
o n e .
2 04 THE CONSTELLAT I ON S
the same hour it is low down in the north seem
, ,

ing to rest upon the ho rizon in an upright posi

tion In July it is to b e foun d in the west an d
.
, ,

at Christmas time in the e ar ly evening hours

,

the most f avorabl e time for observation — it is in

the east The two stars on the side away from
.

the handle of the Dipper ar e called the Poin ters .

A line dr awn about thr ee times as far as the

distan ce between the two,in the direction they
indicate will lead directly to the Pole Star
, .

T he B ig Dipper is the constellati o n which

the ancients designated as the Great Bear In .

Englan d it is sometimes called C harles s Wain

,
’
,

or Wagon ; another name for it is The Plow .

T he Pole Star forms the l ast star in the ta il

of the Little Bear or Little Dipper this con
,

stellation is very like the Great B ear but so ,

much smaller an d fain ter th at it is considerably

harder to locate T he Little Bear is turned the
.

opposite w ay from the Great Bear an d its tail

points in the Opposite direction A large
.

amount of im agination is n ecess ary to see a bear

in either of the figures formed by these co ns tel

latio n s And who ever heard of a bear with
.

a t ail ! A fox or a do g o r almost an y other

2 06 THE CONSTELLATIONS
Be ars must ever wander round an d round the
p o le nor venture to dip their huge bodies beneath
,

the horizon This condition perforce gives way

.
, ,

in the equatori al regions for there constellations

,

which are circumpolar in our latitude begin to

rise an d set Thus the poet accounts for this
.

circumstance
We s aw the B ears, despite o Jun o la ve
f ,

Their tardy bo dies in the bo real wave .

Astronomers speak of the Great Bear an d

the Little B ear as Ursa M aj or an d Urs a Minor ,

whi ch while very high sounding an d scholastic

-

is no more nor less than the two simple terms

rendered in L atin Z eta the middle star in
.
,

the tail of the Great B ear is a famous double , ,

which resolves un der a small telescop e into two

wonderful stars commonly kn own as Mizar an d
,

Alcor A sh arp eye can detect thes e doubles

.

un aided In Europ ean co un tri es these st ars

.
,

“ ”
ar e referr ed to as the hors e an d his rider o r
“ ”
J ack o n the middle horse following the ide a ,

that this constell ation is a plow drawn by thr ee

horses In German mythology Alcor b ecomes
.

”
H ans the Wagoner who in return for aiding
,
 THE CO N S T E LL AT I O N S 2 07 ,

the we ary S avior was o ffered the kingdo m of

he aven kno wing himself unworth y however
, , ,

he begged p ermi ssion inste ad to drive the celes

tial plow horses an d since time out of mind has
,

been seen astride the middle horse Job spoke .

“ ”
of the B ear with her train thus sensibly seeing
,

in the three stars a following of cubs rather ,

th an a tail on an animal th at has always been

t ailless Our own Indian tribes pictured the
.

three stars as a hunter and his dogs following the

trail of the stellar bear in a wondr ous chase which
lasted from early spring till autumn when the ,

animal w as wounded an d its blood sprinkled

the leaves to cr imson russet an d brown

, .

T he Big Dipp er an d the Pole Star constitute

“ ”
the Gre at Star Clock of the North w hich has ,

g uid ed fl eet a n d car av an over w a shes o f sea

an d sand since Time im memorial The Pole

.

Star is the center of the great clock face an d ,

the Pointer stars form the hour hand D ue .

north on the horizon is 12 P M E ach quarter

. .

circl e is six hours an d because the Big Dipper

,
.

seems to swing round from left to right the

pointers run counter clock wise With a little
-
.

practice at drawing imaginary clock faces round -

208 THE C O N ST E LLA T ION S
the P o le, yo u will b e able to gauge the time with
in a half ho ur po ssibly less, .

A lin e extending abo ut as far beyon d the

p ointer s as they ar e fr o m the Po le St ar wi ll sho w ,

o n the oppo site side o f the Gre at Be ar a ,

large capital W m ade up of five o r six stars

, ,

shining so brightly that you will wo nder how it

is that yo u h ave never n oticed this co nstellatio n

before This is C assiopeia If yo u lo o k
. .

sharply yo u m ay p erh aps see the lady in the

,

chair which the an cients fan cied they saw

in this group She is the Ethiopian queen
.

who d ared to set her be au ty above the sea

nymphs an d was sentenced by the go d s
,

to be bound in her ch air an d swung into the

heavens where she might revolve around the
,

Pole now head upward now downward in order

, ,

to teach her humility In looking at C assiopeia.

,

you will note of co urse that this constellation

, ,

seem s to be on or near the great belt of the

Milky W ay with which we are already famil
,

iar .

T he Pole Star the Dippers an d C assiope ia

, ,

constitute wh at is c alled the G rea t N o rthern C o n

stella tion an d serve as co nven ient cel estial land
,
2 10 THE CO N STELLAT ION S
to denote the most prominent star s of a gro up .

0 represents its brightest star B the n ext 7 the , ,

third an d so on As a further identification the

, .
,

Greek letter followed by the Latin genitive o f

the constellations shows to wh at group it belongs :

thus O rionis is the brightest star in Orion

a
,

Y An dr om eda is the third sta r in order of

brightness in A ndromeda If a constellation .

has more than twenty four stars deserving -

especial mention then the letters of the L atin

,

a lphabet ar e used : if thes e prove insufficient ,

ordinary Arabic numerals follow Thus we .

have i T auri 61 Cygni an d the like Further

, , .

than this about o n e hundred st ars have pr oper

,

names mostly of Ar abic origin These stars

, .

usually m ay be exp ressed in two ways ; for ex

ampl e ,T auri is no ne other than Aldebaran
a
,

the well known Bull s eye

-
Lyr ae is the bright
’

,
a

star known as Vega ; 3 Ursa M ajori s is M erak

in the con stellation of the Great B ear ( the bot
to m o n e o f the Pointer stars ) .

B ecause of the rotation of the earth on its a xi s ,

all of the constellations except those of the Gre at

N orthern seem to cro ss the sky fro m east to west ,

 THE CONSTE LLAT I ON S 2 11

rising an d settin g four minutes earlier each

night This slow an d co nstant ever changing
.
-

procession thus brings to e ach se aso n its o wn

constellations so that star gaz ing never lo ses in
,
-

interest Always the scene is ever new an d yet

.

ever old fi lled with the fascin ation of wh at are

,

to us new discoveries an d with the welcoming

of old friends : in spring Gemini ( The ,

Twins ) Leo an d Virgo ; in summer H er

,

cules Scorpio an d Bootes ; in Autumn C yg

, ,

nus Pisces an d Aquila ; in winter Orio n P er

, , , ,

seus C anis Major ( Sirius ) and Taurus ( the

,

Bull ) .

O n e of the most co nspicu ous figures during

autumn an d winter is th at o f the Great Square

—
of P egasus the final home of the famous
win ged horse of ancient Greece whose marvel ,

o u s doin gs are doubtless familiar to all since ,

’
they ar e so charmingly told in H awt horne s
W onder B o o k To re ach this Square we dr aw
.

an im aginary lin e fr o m the Pole Star over the

en d of C assiopei a an d as far again when we ,

come to four st ars which if enclo sed would sug ,

gest to our modern minds a big saucep an instead ,

 2 12 THE C ON ST E LLA T I O N S
of famous ho rse an d o n lo o kin g abo ut we
the ,

find that this symbo l is quite complete fo r ther e ,

is a ben t h andle attached to the p an ! Howev er ,

this is the Great Squar e of P egasus win ged ,

ho rse or not an d it is located in o ne of the mo st

,

in teresting tracts of Star land H alf way b e - -

”
tween one com er of the square or p an an d C as
si0 p eia is the Gre at N ebula in Andromeda .

T he star in the h andle is an exquisite o ran ge

°

co lo red do uble with a sea green co mp an io n .

Near the end of the handle is Perseus So me .

o f you m ay p erh aps recall the tale of this hero s

’

m ar velbu s quest in seach of the Medusa s head

’
.

When he an d An dr omeda the daughter o f ,

C assiopeia whom he rescued from the cruel fa te

,

to which her mother s sin s had bound her were

’
,

snatched up into the sky there to regain peace

, ,

P erseus triumphantly bore with him the M edus a s

’

head Al gol the wonderful variable star is the

.
, ,

”
baleful blinking demon eye of thi s terrible
,
-

“
head which about every third day drops fro m
,

the secon d m agnitude to the fourth an d reco vers

in a few hours The reason for this astonishing
.

diminution of brightnes s is attributed to the

fact that A lgol has a dark comp anion about the ,
2 14 THE CONSTELLA TIO N S
e n more than six star s with the naked eye
s e .

In the old days people attached p articular go o d

luck to the number seven ; so it is quite po ssible
that those who nam ed this cons tellation invented
the tale of the lost Pleiad which has cro pp ed
,

up in literatur e since time out of mind A n o ld .

writer tells us th at the B erbers an d Dyaks lo

cated the center of the Univ er se an d the abo de o f

the D eity in the Ple iades

“
.W ith N o v- ber ,

—
the Pleiad month when thi s constell atio n
’

r e aches its high est p in nacle in the so uthe astern

heavens many primitive peo ple began their

‘

year ; an d on the day of the midnight culmin a

tion of the Pleiades N o vember 17 no petitio n
, ,

was pres en ted in vain to the ancient kin gs o f

P er sia T he s ame event gave the signal a t
.

Bus iris for the commencement of the feast o f

I sis . S avage Austr alian trib es to this day
d ance in hon or of the S even Stars becau se
‘
,
’

‘
they are very good to black fellows A lcy
.
’

o n e the br ight est st ar of the gr oup reach es its

, ,

best p erio d about the time of the win t er solstice ,

when all the world is sun k for a few days in

“
restful calm Sometim es this is a gold en
.

”
cluck hen with her brood of chickens abo ut her ;
-
2 16 THE CONSTELLATION S
to us It is the bright star of the Hyades group
.
,

which mythology terms half sisters of the -

Pleiades and with them forms a p art of the

,

con stellation of T aurus the Bull The Hyades .

“
are d escribed by the p o et a s whitening all the
”
Bull s broad forehead T he n ame comes from
’
.

the Greek word ra in an d when thes e stars ar e ,

“ ”
close to the horizon a sp ell of weather m ay be
“ ”
exp ected In the showery sprin gtime says ,

Porter they set just a fter the sun and in the

, ,

stormy p eriod of late fall just before sunrise .

T he clas sic writers again an d again refer to them

as the rai n st ar s ; Sp en s er c a lled th em moist
”
daughters an d in T en n y son s U lysses we rea d :
,
’

Th ro u
gh scu ddi n
g drifts the r ain y H yades
Vex d the dim
’
sea .

T he glory of our win t er ski es is the constella

tion of Orion pronoun ced a s though written
,

“
O Ryan
’
It is often called the Wild Irishma n
.

”
of the Skies an d wa s always pictured by the
,

ancients a s a marv elous gi ant sword sman This .

con stellation m ay be located a little to the ea st

an d southw ard from Al deb ar an A line drawn .

from the Pole Star do wn through C apella an d

 TH E C O N STEL LA TIO N S 2 17
“
produced as much farther again strikes the
western co rner of a long irregular four sided -

space in which may be seen the belt of the hunter ,

set as thre e slantin st a rs Below th s

g . e e as ,

though dropp ed from them are three more stars

,

in the position of a sword Two brilliant suns

.

of the first m agnitude mark this splendid figure

unerringly for all eyes : B etelgeuse with who se ,

prowess we are already familiar is located fro m ,

“ ”
its name meanin g armpit ; Rigel whom some
, ,

astronomers term Algeb ar is on the opposite

,

lower corner B ellatrix T he F emale W arrior

.
“
,

”
or Ama zon Star is a star of the second mag
,

nitu de as are also the three stars in the belt an d

,

the st ar at the lower corner toward which they

“
point Acco rding to Porter The three stars
.
,

in the belt constitute the golden yardarm of sea

m en an d the yardstick or ell of tradesmen be
, ,

sides bein g popularly known as the M agi o r -

th ree wise men from the Orient an d the three ,

”
M arys T he s ame authority also tells us th at
.

by reaso n of the fa ct that Orion was supposedly

swung up to heaven to te ach m en not to be

to o co nfident of their own strength a co mmittee ,

of the University of L eipsic in 18 07 resolved, ,

2 18 THE C ON STE LLATIO N S
that the sta rs belon ging to the belt an d swo r d
of Orion shoul d in the future be called N apoleo n .

Their resolution however failed to meet the a p

, ,

proval of astronomers at large an d m ap makers ,

-

h ave given the suggestion small heed A s .

Orion lies on the celestial equator he is equally ,

familiar to the peo ples of the North an d the

South an d he has been a favorite allusion with
,

p o ets an d writers of all time being several times

,

mentioned in the Bible Domin ating the skies

.

as he does at a se a son when squally weather is

rife it is not to b e wondered that he is blamed

,

for much of the un pleas antnes s Indeed a n .

ancient writer goes so far a s to st at e th at the

loss of the Rom an fleet durin g the first Pun ic

“
war w as c aus ed by the obstin acy of the con sul s ,

who despite the p ilots would s ail between the

, ,

risings of Orion an d Siriu s always a squally

,

”
time .

Sirius you remember is the Dog Star other

, , ,

wise known as C anis M aj o r an d the brightest

,

star in all the heaven s b ein g man y times bright er

,

than an y other st ar of the first magnitude an d ,

therefo re in a class quite by himself If the line .

his worship Unlike most doubles S itia s shines
.
,

with an inten se white light As he is always

’

seen co mp aratively close to the horizon his rays ,

of light w hich are more than eight years re ach

f
,

ing us are so broken up by their p assage through

,

the atmosphere th at he seems always to twinkle

,

at a ma rvelous r ate T his excessive scintilla

.

tion gives the impression of a many colo red -

,

chan gin g light which Tennyso n thus describes in

,

T he P rincess :

T he fiery Sirius t
al er s hue,
An d bickers in to red a n d emer al d .

A lin e dr awn slan tin g n ortheast from Siriu s

leads o n e to the con stellation known as the Little
Dog or C anis Minor This animal is a hound
, .

“ ”
belon gin g to the famous H eaven ly Twins at ,

whose heels he follows You will n ote these r e .

n o wn ed hu n ters glowing as two bright star s

, ,

a little to the westward a lmost in line with ,

C apella C astor an d Pollux they are called

.
,

an d with the st ars which mak e up their ve r

y
sketchy outlin e form the con stellation of Gemini ,

pronoun ced Jim in y H en ceforth when yo u

.
,

”
hear an y o n e exclaim B y J im in y ! bear in mind
 THE CONSTEL LATIONS 22 1

that it is by this constellatio n they are swearing !

C astor an d Pollux were the sons of Leda an d ,

hence are known in literature as the L edwan

lights . In T he W anderer Owen Meredith ,

spe aks of them thus :

T he lo n e Ledtean lig hts fr m yo u e ch nted air

o n a

d
L o o k o wn u o n my p s p irit lik e a sp i it s eyes th at
,
r
’

lo ve m e

T he twins were famous w arr iors C astor being ,

esp ecially kn own for his mir aculous b attle on

hor seback while Pollux was a pugilist to be

,

feared They were brothers of H elen of Troy

.
,

an d on the return of the much recoun ted Argo

n autic expedition when a storm thre atened to

,

destroy the vessel Apollo to whom an app eal

, ,

w as m ade allayed the tempest an d set a star

, ,

on the head of each Twin in token thereof .

H enceforward The Twins became revered by

seamen an d their efligies were fr equently placed
,

on boats as a talisman T he electrical flames

.
,

known as S aint Elm o s lights which are fre

’

quently se en playing about the mastheads of the

vessels in he avy weather were formerly sup ,

os ed to be due to the influence o f these mys tic

p
222 THE CONSTELLAT I ONS
Twins Thus in Longfellow s G o lden
.
’
L egend
the p adron e assures the prince :

La st n ight I saw S ain t E lmo s sta rs ’

With their glitterin g lan tern s all at play

O n the to p s o f the m a sts a n d the tip s o f the stars ,

A n d I k ew w e sh o ul d h a ve fo ul weather to day
n -
.

C astor does not appear as brilli ant in the b eav

en s a s his br oth er but he is in thru th more inter
,

esting M en tion ha s already b een made of him

.

as a famous double st ar blue in color an d so, ,

gorgeous a n d st ately that cen turies speed o n

,

while he revolves about his co m p am o n i n regal

maj esty .

Returnin g again to the Great B ear we draw ,

a li n e thr ough the l a st st ars of his ta il co n ,

tinn in g o n un til w e come to B o otes the Herd s ,

m an whom modem p eopl es woul d no dou b t

, , ,

“ ”
style the O x D river -
as he foll o ws the plo w
,

o x en roun d an d r ou n d the pol e T he two bright

.

stars in fr on t of B o otes ar e the hounds whi ch

a ided him in the ch as e B etw een these two is
.

a fi n e double st ar n amed C o r C aroli which was ,

discovered o n the eve of the r eturn of Charles II

to L o n don an d therefore christen ed in his hon o r
, .

It has b een recorded in history th at this well

 TH E C O N ST E LLA T I O N S 2 23

kn own merry monarch never said a foolish

”
thing an d never did a wise one
, But we must
.

not forget that it w as he who issued the decree

for foun din g the royal ob servatory at Greenwich ,

thereby givin g to the science o f astronomy an

imp etus of incalculable value In the early .

times Arcturus alr eady men tioned as a won

, ,

dro us sta r of the first m agnitude was rep re ,

sented as a spear in the han d of a hunter who

was su pposed to be pursuing the Great B ear .

“
T he Arabs termed it the L an cebearer N ot .

far from Arctur us is a cluster of stars sh ap ed

like a horseshoe This is the Northern Crown
.
,

or tiara of stars which the ancien ts connected

with Ari adn e the daughter of King Minos of
, ,

Crete who became the bride of Theseus while he

,

was at the height of his Athen i an triumphs .

Later she was deserted by her faithless husb and ,

an d Venus in pity promised to send her an im

, ,

mo rt al lover Accordingly B acchus the go d

.
,

o f win e wooed an d won her

, an d gave her a
,

m ost glor ious crown of jewels as a wedding gift .

On her de ath this crown was tran sferred to the

,

sky an d the gems became a wreath of sp arkling

,

stars . B ut the centuries seem to h ave dimmed

22 4. THE C O N ST E L L A T IO N S

their brightness Tod ay there is only one fairly

.

bright sta r in the co llection However the .

,

Northern Crown is interesting to lo ok at an d it ,

serves furth ermore as a guide post in loc atin g

-

the fam ous cluster of H ercules which lies near,

at hand .

T he w on derfully bright star which shin es

nearly overhead in summer is Vega the har p ,

“ ”
star known also as the arc light of the sky
,
-
,

by reason of its brilliant sapphire hue By lo o k .

ing clo sely yo u m ay be able to tra ce the outlin e

of a harp among the small sta rs n ear This .

represen ts the constellation of Lyra suppo sed ,

by the ancients to have been connected with the

harp of Arion a famous Sicilian musician who
,

wa s on ce set upon by pir ates who sought to ,

wrest from him a valuable p rize which he had

won by his skill As they were about to throw
.

him overboard Arion requ ested permission to

,

play for the last time on his harp Nothin g .

loath the robber s settled themselves for a rare

,

musical treat an d were not surprised when

,

presently the dolphins began to gather about the

bo at in a charmed circle A mused by the ev
.

ident pleasure of the motionless herd their eyes ,

226 THE CONSTELLA T I ONS
its talons it ca rries the youth Gan ymede who m ,

the Gre at Jove had caused to be seized an d ho m e

aloft to serve him as a cu p b earer -

.

fl ush ed Ganym ede his ro sy thigh

,

H al f b uried in the eagle s do wn

’

S o le as a flyin g star sho t thr o ugh the sky

Abo ve the pill a red to wn .

Tennyso n .

T he Little B ear an d Lyr a form the guid e

posts for another constellation th at is a ssoci ated
with a well known tale We remember tha t
-
.
,

when Phaeton swept from his ill sta rred voya ge -

a s ch ariot eer of the Sun his fr iend Cygn us could

,

n o t give him up an d div ed so oft en in the stre am

,

in s ear ch of his body th at the god s grew an gr y

an d ch an ged him into a sw an L ater the pen
.

sive bird which still sailed hither an d yo u

, ,

thru stin g its head into the water was caught up ,

in to the sky where it forms the figure known as

,

Cygn us the Swan W e will do marvelously

,
.

well however if we succeed in tracin g an outlin e

, ,

which in an y w ay resembles this water fowl !

But the pr in cip al star s of this constellatio n
fo rm the Northern Cro ss an d this yo u may re ad
,

ily recogniz e It is well kn own to all star

.
 THE C ONSTELLAT I ONS 22 7

gazers Lowell gives a beautiful picture of the

.

Cross presiding over the op enin g of the New

Year :
O rio n kn eelin g in his starry niche ,

T he Lyre wh o se strin gs give music au dible

To ho ly ea r s, an d co un tless sple do rs m o e
n r ,

C r o wn ed b y the bla zin g C o ss h igh hun g o er al l

’
-
r .

’
A lbir eo ,
-
in the Swan s head is a lovely double ,

star formed by two co mp anions of golden an d

,

azure so well sep arated th at they m ake exquis

,

ite o bj ects in the small telescop e 6 1 Cygni .

,

in the left wing has been mentioned vario usly

,

in th ese p ages .

The Southern Cross though in no wise con ,

n ected with the constella tion of the Swan an d

in visible within the boun daries of the United

States m ay be mention ed j ust here It fo rm s .

“ ”
the night clock of those who liv e within an d be
-

yond the tropics A writer of the southlan ds re

.

“
marks : How often have we h eard our guides ex
claim in the savannahs of Ven ezuela an d in the
desert extending from Lima to Truxillo Mid ,
‘

night is p ast the cross begins to bend l

, Whit ’

tier in his C ry o f a L o st S o ul cites the Southern ,

Cross as a symb ol of God s mercy H e pictures ’

.
2 28 THE CONS T E L LATIO N S
atr aveling p arty in the glo omy fore sts o f the
Amazon when suddenly through the night lists
, ,

A cry, as o f the p ain e d h

ea r t of the wo o d ,

T he lo n g, d p es a ir ing m o a n o f t d
so li u e .

T he guides cross themselves an d explain in lo w

frighten ed voices that it is the plain t o f a lo st
soul some un believer burning in hell But the r e
, .

is o n e who uncon vinced

, ,

Li fts to the t
s a r ry calm of heaven his eyes,

An d l o ! b ki n g
re u a ll ea r t hs ’
o min o us cries ,

T he C ro ss of p rdo n
a h
lig ts the tro ic p s kies .

THE Z OD IAC
F amiliarity with the constellations already
men tioned will give the amateur a wide range o f
acqu aintances in the sky an d will p erh aps be ,

sufficient for tho se who do n o t wish to delve more

deeply in to astron omy For the other s however .
, ,

there remains yet an interesting trail It is the .

p ath marked by the zodiac amon g the stars .

T he zodi ac you remember is an im agin ary z on e

, ,

or gir dle stretching aroun d the celestial sphere

, ,

in a b elt extending eight degrees on either side o f

the ecliptic N either the Moon nor any one o f
.
2 80 THE CONSTELLATIONS
Imagin e the E arth moving round its orbit with
the Sun in the middle Now around this draw
.

anothe r wide ellip se to rep resent the zodiac an d

divide it into twelve equal p arts which you nu ,

der stan d remain always fixed As the E arth

.

moves a perso n located at any o n e point will

,

app arently see the Sun contin u ally against a

—
different background that is to say he se ems to
change his position among the stars an d to move
in an d a cross the constellations by reason of o ur
revolution The same rule holds true of the
.

Moon an d the planets Thus we say that a

.

heavenly body is in a certa in constellation when

it seems for the t ime bein g to be a p art of it As .

the plan et s are always to be fou n d in some o n e

of the zo di ac con stellations an d as the alman acs

,

tell u s which o n e this is we have on ly to learn

,

the st ar s o f the zodiac to loc at e an y pl an et we

wi sh to plo t A sure aid in lo catin g the zo di aca l

.

co n stellatio n s is to kn ow at wh at time they will

b e o n our m eridian th at is the lin e over our hea d
,

due n o rth an d sou th at n in e o clock at n ight

’

, ,

durin g a given month Here is a table b y

.
‘

mon ths .
 THE CONSTE LLATIONS 2 31

N ame C o mm o n N ame

T he Ram
T he Bull
The Twi ns

T he C b ra

Th e Li on

T he Vi gir n

The Bl a ance

T he Sco r ion p
The A rcher

The G o at

The W ater -
B earer

The Fishes

To fin d an y zodiacal constellation
other month th an that here given subtract two ,

hours for each following mon th Suppose we .

wan t to fin d Aqu arius the water b earer in No ,

-
,

vem ber inst ead of Octob er

i W e must look fo r .

it on our meridi an at 7 P M an d in D ecember . .

, ,

at 5 P . M .

Owing to the precession o r b ackward move

ment of the equinox es a con fu sion has re ,

sulted in the co n s tella tio n s of the zodi ac an d the

sign s of the zodi ac Tim e w as when they wer e

.

o n e an d the s ame ; now the two t erms st an d for

something differ ent T he signs of the zodiac

.

ar e symbols for the sp ac es or p arts of the great

circle which it forms Two or three tho usand .

e ars a o wh en th ey were christ en ed the con

y g , ,
2 32 TH E CONSTELLATIONS
stellatio ns stood in the signs of their name ;
since then these signs have shifted one space to
,
'

the right whil e the co n stellations h ave of course

, , ,

stood still T he r esult is a tangle which how

.
,

ever can be unraveled after a few efl o rts

,
’
.

Wh en the almanac says that a planet is in that

p art of the zodiac who se sign is Aries this ,

does not mean that it is in the constellation of

Aries For the constellation of Aries has ap
. .

p ar en tly mov ed w est wa rd an d.is now in th a t p art

of the zodiac indicated by the symbol T au
rus ; the constellation of Pisces occupies the
place indicated by the sign of Aries W e shall .

hav e no difficulty with this if we remember al

way s to shift the const ellation one place to the
r ight of the sign which b ea rs its name .

W e must not exp ect to locate the stars of the

zo di ac by the con stellation s a s outlined in the dia
gr ams o f the Cir cle of the Z o diac Rememb er
.

that fo r the pur poses of illustration these had to

be m ad e co mp act ; in reality the st ars of these
figures are scattered widely over thirty degrees
of sp ace as has been mentioned an d some do not
, ,

even stop there but range on to some p articular

,

constellation which stands as a guide post -

We .
 TH E CONSTELLAT I ONS 233

will need a good star m ap to m ake an y real

headway in locating the stars of the zodiac In .

the almanacs our year begins with January .

The sun is then in the sign Aquarius hence this ,

month is usually indicated by the picture of

Aquarius pourin g water from a pitcher In .

studying the zodi ac we begin with Aries which

, ,

the sun former ly entered in M arch an d read ,

fro m right to left or counter clockwise in the -

,

position which the E arth travels thus following ,

the app arent eastw ard p ath of the sun through

the constell ations The following rhyme puts

.

the order of the stars of the zodiac firmly in

mind :

Ram, the B ull, the H eavenl y T wins ,

n ex t the C ra b , the Lio n shin es ,

Virgin an d the Sc al es ;
Sco pio A her
r n, d H e go at
rc , an -
,

M a that ho lds the w aterin g p o t

n -
,

Fi h with glitte in g tails

s r .

W ith some of these constellations we are al

ready familiar It gives us a little heart for

.

the task a beginnin g in the great elongated

,
-

wheel or circle which outlin es the ecliptic .

Q uickly we se arch out the Bull an d the H eav

234 TH E C O N STE LLAT IO N S
en ly T wins But the Ram head s the list : ho w
.

shall we find him ? E a sily enough as it hap ,

pens W e have only to draw a line from the

.

Pole Star to Alpha in the lower left hand corner -

of the Great Squa re of Pegasus ; then down

ward until we come to two bright stars quite
close together an d a third one not quite so bright
, .

These are the chief stars in the conste llation o f

Aries the Ra m with the wondrous golden fleece
,

of Argonautic fame .

C ancer the Cr ab is the most diffi cult to lo

, ,

cate of all the zodiacal constellations He stand s .

a t the sign which m arks the north ern tropic ,

where the Sun stops a scen ding According to .

o ld Ch ald ean philosopher s it wa s j ust h ere tha t

“ ”
the gat e o f m en w as l o c ated by which human ,

so uls d escen d ed to fill the bodi es allotted to them .

C apricorn in the southern tr opic where the Sun

, ,

aga in turn ed w as the gate where the souls wer e

,

r eceiv ed b ack to h eaven In the con stellation .

of C an cer is the famou s b eehive cluster alr eady ,

men tion ed Mythology styled this the Manger

.
,

the two star s lyin g o n e on either side being

n am ed the ass s colts T he M anger has not in

’
.

frequently been mist aken fo r a comet by in ex

2 36 THE CONSTELLATION S
we a rrive at Spica the Virgin the chief star in
, ,

the constellation of Virgo This group is o f in

.

terest chi efly because while the Sun is at this

point it p asses the autum n al equinox T he .

Virgin an d the h arvest were always inseparab ly

lin ked in the minds of the ancients an d she is ,

invariably r epresented with a sheaf of wheat in

o n e h and an d a sickle in the other Instead o f
.

the goddess of the fields modern minds see in

,

this group a huge star diamon d outlined against

the blu e . It is the largest of the zodiacal co n
st ellatio n s an d stands in the field where ther e
,

ar e comp ar atively few star s being quite r emo te

,

from the Milky W ay in a region where th e

,

nebulae con gregat e in rich n umber s .

T he scales mark the constell ation of L ibr a ,

“ ”
the B alance In all the round of the zodiac ,

says Po rt er this const ellation alon e represen t s

,

an inan im ate obj ect ; an d its antiquity though ,

somewh at in disput e does n o t seem to be ver y

,

g r eat . C ert a in it is th at the Greeks associated

its star s with the cl aws of the Scorpio n which

follows to the east Scorpio indeed seems to
.
, ,

have been considered a double sign thus co m ,

”
letin g the twelv e
p ,
2 38 THE CONSTELLATIONS
of the ancient centaur or m an horse He is the -
.

p atron of the hun t an d the chas e an d is alway s ,

pictured shooting an arrow from a bow at the

fiery h eart of the S corpion We fin d S agit .

tarius easy to locate as it lies where the p ath of

,

the zodiac crosses the Milky W ay O n e of it s .

most outst anding features is the little milk dip

per formed of seven stars an d lying turn ed up
, ,

side down There are also several interestin g

.

star clusters an d nebulae in this constellation .

T he wint er solstice is marked h alf way between -

the constellation o f Sco r pion an d S agittarius at ,

a point b etween the two streams of the Milky

W ay In an cient times C apricornus the sea

.
,

go at m arked this solstice ; then the constellation

,

occupi ed the lowest or most southern part of the

'

zodiac Note Milton s lin es :

.
’

S o me s ay the Sun
Wa s bid turn r ein s f ro m the equin o ctial ro ad

U p to the t pic
ro C r ab ; the d w main
n ce o n a ,

B y Leo an d the Virgin an d th S c les e a ,

As d p
ee as C ap ico rn , to b in g in ch n ge
r a

Of s ea so n s to eac h clime .

C apricornus is now a constellation of autumn .

Of course he looks no more like a goat fish tha n

,
-
 THE C ONSTELLATIONS 239

S agittarius looks like a m an horse But so the

-
.

early peoples pictured him an d the as trologers

,

reckoned that p erson fortunate indeed who was

born un der this sign of the zodiac C apricornus .

is easily foun d by drawing a line through Vega

in Ly ra an d on to Alt air in Aquila an d thence
to the p ath of the zodiac T he two brightest
.

stars of C apricornus are in his go at like head -

.

O n e of th ese stars is a famous naked ey e double -

.

In the days of the ancients however it took an

, ,

especially good eye to d etect this an d hence it ,

“ ”
belon ged to the test st ars The doubles we.
,

“
are told , are sep ar ating at the r at e of o n e min

ute of an ar e in about thirt een hundr ed ye ar s ,

their present distance being six minutes This .

corr espon ds to a distance of about fo rty eight -

quadrillion miles An other bright star of the

.

sea go at is to be found in his fi sh like t ail

-
Of
-
.

cour s e it was inevitable that C apricorn us

,

should become associat ed in mythology with the

god P an who w as also p art go at Indeed
, .
,

C apricornus is himself the god P an in his goat

like disguis e ; for being att acked by a great fire
,

breathing typhon P an jump ed into the sea to

'

save hims elf Here he shortly threw out a fin n y

.
2 40 THE CONSTE LLAT IO N S
tail an d became amphibious Pictures o f this .

constellation th erefore always show a curio u s

, ,

animal with the h ead an d horns of a go at an d a

bo dy which slopes o fl into the hinder parts o f

’

a gre at fish .

Aquarius is the m an with the watering po t -

.

His is a constellation of autumn but the sta rs ,

which form it are faint an d hard to fin d It .

is located in that p art of the sky which the

Chaldeans designated as the sea The dol
phin Cetus the whale three fishes an d a goo dl y
, , ,

company of other aquatic creatures are among

his near neighbor s T he Romans gave to him
.

his n ame of the W aterm an because in the long,

ago w hen the sun en t ered the si gn of Aqu ar iu s ,

in J an uary ther e were usually heavy rain s

,

thr oughout It aly .

“
T he Fi sh with glitterin g t ails is the co n stel
lation of Pisces This last member of th e
.

zodi acal group is r eall y twin s being fashione d ,

of two fishes widely s ep arated but h aving their

, ,

t ales conn ected by a ribbon It is not an inter

.

estin g con st ell ation to look at with the n a k ed

eye for its st ars stream out in two fain t lin es

, .

spreading away beyond their o wn division of the

2 42 THE CONSTE L LAT I ONS
farther One thing deters : A s we consider the
.

universe of the stars we find our selves utterly ,

without adequate scales for measur emen t .

Even the vast scale of millions of m iles used in

determining the points of the solar system is
usel ess here We must think in billions an d.

hundreds of billions of miles W e are lost in a .

—
marvel of Infinity an d Eternity a Universe
totally without bounds havin g absolutely no b e ,

ginning o r en d in time And thus it must ever .

be :

I o p en my scu ttle at n ig ht an d see the far -

p rin kled
s

sy s em s, t
An d a ll I s ee, p d as high s I c iphe edg
m ulti lie a an c r, e but
the r im f th f th
o sy s t m se ar er e

Wider an d w id th y sp d p di g alw ys e p
er e r ea , ex an n , a x an d

in g,
O utw a r d , o utw a r d , an d f o r ever o utw a r d
My s un ha s hi s s un , an d a r o un d him o bediently w heels ;
He j o in s with his p a r tn er s a gr o u o f p sup eri o r cir cui t,

An d grea ter s ets f

o llo w, m a kin
g s eck s p of the gr ea tes t in
si d e th em .

Th er e is no sto p p a ge, an d n ever ca n be pp ges to a .

If I , o
y ,u the w o r l d s, a ll ben eath or up th i onu f ce e r s r a s,

an d all the p a l p a ble li f e, w er e thi m m

s t du d
o en re ce

ba ck to a p alli dfl o a t, it wo uld n o t a va il in the l o n g

r un .

We s ho ul d s ur ely b rin g up agai n where we n o w s ta n d ,

An d s u r ely o as much —
farth er an d then farther an d
as
g
f rther
a .
 TH E CONSTELLAT I ONS 2 43

A few qua drilli o n s o f er as , a few octill io n s o f cu bic leagues ,

do nothaz d the s p n m k it im patie t

ar a or a e n .

a —
They r e but p ts an ythin g is b ut p art
ar a ,

See ever s fa th e e is limitless sp ace o utside f that

o r, r o ,

C o un t ever so m uch there is limitless tim e r u d th at

,
a o n .

—WA L 1 WH IT M AN
' ‘
.
 P RI NC IPAL STA RS
brightest in this h
n o rt ern co n s ella t tio n which is,
se

tually a pair of bl zing a suns . E ach is n e rly a the

s ame si e as o ur z Sun .

ALP H A C n N rA unr
(
'
d o ub le star o f th e
C en ta urus) . A fin e
first m agnitude o e being lmo st the co un terpart o f ,
n a

o ur S u R an ks third in rder o f brightness In

n. o .

visibl e i n o rth e l titudes

n C o sses meridi n Jun rn a . r a e

2 9 th App chi g t ate o f

. miles per seco n d
ro a n a r .

D ist t fo u ligh t yea s

an r r .

AL P H A C u crs ( C u ) T he b ightest star in the So u th

a r z . r

e n C o ss
r b ut n o t visible in the n rthern l titu d es
r , o a .

It is a trip le star f an d 6 ma gnitu d e o .

C r o ss s meridian M y 2 9 th
e Recedin g at r te o f a . a

mil s p e seco d e r n .

AL PH A P n sr n ( P e eus) B ightest star in this eas tern

a rs . r

co ns tell ti o n Set i a p articul rly fin e sta field

a . n a r .

AL rm C C A ( C o ona)
P B ightest s t
r in this co ns tell a ti o n
. r ar .

A L r A m ( A quila)
'
A b illi nt st wh o se light is abo u t
. r a ar

eight times th t o f th Sun O f fi st m ag itud

a d e . r n e, an

thi tee th in o rde f b ight ss C ro sses meridi n

r n r o r ne . a

S ept m b 19 th App e er hi g t r te f mil es

. ro ac n a a o

p er
s d D i t
eco n
s t s i t l i ght
.
y e s an x een ar .

AN DR M DA N ULA ( A d o m d ) A ebul clust o f

O E EB n r e a . n ar er

un u su al beauty , an d the brightest b

n e ul a in the b ea v
en s .

AN T AR E S ( S co rp ius) . A bla zin g re d star a bo ut

tim es as b ri g t h as o ur Sun . O f the fi str m agn itu de .

S a id to b e even la rger tha n B etel geuse .

An c r u a u s
'
T he b r ightest s ta r in n o r the n r s ky .

Its l ig t is h 5 0 0 tim es tha t o f the Sun ; its velo cit

y
a b o ut 2 0 0 m il es a seco n d . R ks fifth an in or d er of

brightn ess . C r o sses meri ian d J un e 2 4th . D is ta n t

1 6 0 l ig t year s h .
 PRI NC I P A L STA RS 247

B E LLA T RI! ( O rio n ) . A star o f seco n d magn itude in o ppo

s itio n to B etel geus e .

B E T A C ABSIO P ELE ( C as s io p eia) . T he t po inter at

righ

to p of
“
W ,
”
which is use d in determining Green wich

B E T A C E N rA U m '
( C en ta urus) te th s t ar i n . T he n or der of

brightn ess , but in visible in n o rth e latitudes rn . C r o sses

meri dian J un e l t .

B E T A C YG N I ( C ygnus) . An t
ex remely beautiful do uble
t
s ar .

B n r z Lo iw sn
'

( Orio n ) . T he brightest star in this co nstel

latio n , an d on e of the la rges t kn o w n Its . m ass is

n o w rec ko n ed times th t o f o u Su
to be 4 3 milli o n a r n.

O f the fi st magnitude an d eleven th in o de o f

r ,
r r

b ightn ess C o ss s meridian Feb ru ry 1 5th Reced

r . r e a .

in g f o m the E arthr t r te o f thirteen mil es per a a

s eco nd .

C N O P U ( Argus)
A B O utran ked o n ly by S irius in o der o f
. r

b ight ess A fi st m gnitude sta b ut in visible in

r n . r a r,

ou m iddle n o the
r l titudes C sses me idian r rn a . ro r

Feb uary 2 3 d r R ecedi g fro m the E arth t r ate o f

r . n a

m iles p e se o n d r c .

C A P E LL A ( A u ig ) O ne o f the brightest st rs
r a . d of a , an

fi t m g itude Its m ss is abo ut 4 00 0 times th t o f

rs a n . a a

o ur Su d its lumin o sity 1 30 times

n, an s gre t a a .

R n ks f urth i o de o f b ightn ess C o sses m e i

a o n r r r . r r

dian Feb uary 5 th R ecedin g f o m E th t r ate o f

r . r ar a

mil s p seco n d Dista t thirty two light years

e er . n -
.

N e C pella m y b e see the Th ee Kids

ar a a n
“
r .
”

C A s r o n ( G mi i)
'
A very fin e do uble sta
e n .M gnitude r. a

Fo rms with P o ll ux the

“
2 nd a H eavenly
Twins
C r as s A min o planet who se diameter is 4 80 miles
. r .
 v I A L ST

C o n C ano n ( B alms) . A fine double star named in ho n o r

of C h a rles II .

61 C r am ( C ygn us) . Famo us as the first star wh o se

distance w as ever measured . Actuall y a do uble s ta r ,

of magnitude . Velo city s ix ty three miles

-
p er aw

D un es ( C ygn us) . A star of the first magnitude, an d

a bo ut twentieth in o r der o f brilliance .

D unn ! : ( Ursa M aj or) . Alpha, o r brightest star in the

“
Dipper .
”
O f the seco n d ma gn itude . D ubhe and

M er ak are
“ ”
the po inter to the No rth Star, D ub he
being th e nearer.

Ea rn . P l anet o f o ur m.
sol ar syste Third nea rest th e
Sun . Distant 9 8 millio n miles . Yearly o rbit 36 5
days . D iameter 7 9 18 miles .

E no s . A mino r ptical o rbit planet with an elli .

Fo n u A Ln A u r ( P i cis A us t al i )
'
A star o f the first magn i
s r s .

tude r an kin g eighteen th in o rd er o f b rilliance

,
.

H A M A L ( A ri ) B rightest st r in this co nstell tio n

es . Of a a .

s o d m gnitud e
ec n a .

J m um P lan et o f o ur so la r system
. D ista t 4 83 m il . n

li m il
on f m th Sun T im e o f o b it twelve ye rs
es ro e . r a .

S i e 12 00 times th t o f the E rth D iamet r

z a a . e

miles .

M A a x A s ( P egasus) . O ne of fo u r co rner m arkers of thi s

squa re . A seco n d magni tud e t
s ar .

M Aa s . P l an e t o f o ur so la r system . Fo urth n ea res t th e

Sun . D istan t 14 1 millio n miles . Time of or bit 687
d a ys . D iameter 4 2 30 miles .

Mr q ( Ursa M aj o r) . Be ta , d brightest star in

o r seco n

the D ipper “
.
”
O f the seco n d magn itude Fo rms .

with D ubh e the ter to the N o rth St r D u b h e

“
P o in a ,

bein g the nearer .

Mua cunr . P l an e t o f o ur s o lar sys em. t Nearest the S un .

 PRI NC I PA L STAR S
enl y Twin s . Recedin g at ra e t of miles per
seco n d .

P ao c r o x ( C a n is M ino r) . One o f o ur n ea res t star n eigh

bo rs , an d of the fi st r m agn itu de . Its ligh t is abo u t
tim es th t o f the Sun its velo city eleven mil es a
ten a ,

s eco d R nks n in th in rde o f brightn ess C ro sses

n . a o r .

me idi n M a ch 14 th App o chi g at r te f

r a r mil es . r a n a o

p e s er o d D i t
c n
s a t tw e l v e
. li g ht yea rs n .

RE G U L (
UBL o ) A b ige ht s ta r f
. m gn itud e Its r o a .

light is 1 000 times gr ter th ou Sun Appro ach ea an r .

in g at r te o f five mil es p e seco d

a r n .

B ro n (
x.O io n ) A
r s p le n did s
. ta o f t he fi r st m gn itu d e r a

w h i h is c times s lumi o us s the Sun Ran ks a n a .

s ve th
e nm o g the sta s fo a brightn ess C os ses
n r r . r

me i dian Feb u ry 5th

r Recedin g at te f
r a . ra o

m il s p e sec n d er On o pp o site side o f co nstellati o n

o .

f o m B etelgeuse
r .

S A T URN P l et f u . an l s ystem D ista t 8 8 6 m il

o o r so a r . n

li m il
on f m th Su es Time o f bit tw n ty i e
ro e n . or , e -
n n

d o e h lf y
an n s-
D iameter
a miles
ea r N o ted .
, .

fo r its r in
gs .

S -
en n a r ( P egas us) . On e o f f o ur co rn er markers o f t is h
s qua r e. de Of seco n d m a gni tu .

S R U ( C i M jo )
l i B T he b ighte t sta in the h ve s
an s a r . r s r ea n .

M gni tud a Alth ugh Si iu is nly two a d o n e

e o r s o n

h l f tim th m s
a f th Su it i thi ty tim es s
es e a s o e n, s r a

lumi u C s m idi
no F b u y 2 8 th
s . Ap ro s es er an e r ar .

p h i g t te
r o aco f m il p
n s o d Dai s t n t ra es er ec n . a

light m iles .

S CAPI ( Virgo ) . A d ubl

o e star o f the fi r st m agn itu de .

T he co m p o n en ts a r e a bo ut 11 mi llio n m il es a p a r t, an d
a re a b o ut n in e a n d s ix times the m a s s of the Sun re

sp ectively . Recedin g a t r ate o f m iles p er d

s ec o n .

UR A N US . P la n e t o f o ur s o la r sys tem, n ex to the t f rthes t

a
 PRINCIPAL STARS 2 51

remo ve d . D istan t 17 80 m illio n miles fro m the Sun .

Time of o rbit ei ht
g y f o ur ye-
a rs D iame ter .
,

VE GA ( Lyra) . A star of fir st m agn i tude , an d th in

six

or d er of times s
brillian ce . Abo ut 10 0 a di t as
ra an

o ur Sun C ro sses me idi

. August 8 oth r an . App o ch r a

in g at r ate o f mil es p er seco d A stro o me s n . n r

r eck o n th t it w ill beco m e the N o rth Sta r

a y ear s ,

hen e Dist t tw ty seve light ye s

c . an en -
n ar .

VE N US P la t f o u so l system Se d e rest to
. ne o r ar . co n n a

the Su D ista t 6 7 millio miles T ime o f o bit 2 2 5

n . n n . r

d ys Diam et 7 7 9 9 miles o r n earl the siz e o f the

a . er ,
v

E a th r .
25 4 GLOS SAR Y
t
cen er o f a bo dy . The reac tio n o r pull against a fo rce
that is c a us in g a bo dy to mo ve in a circle.

C n no u o sp n n u . A sphere o r layer O f red gases surro un d

in g the Sun . Visible during an ecli pse .

C on s . T he b
n e ulo us m ass surro un ding the head o r nucl eus
o f a co me t .

C o n nr . A heavenly bo dy
t d fo r its sin gul r app ea r no e a

an ce d eccen t ic o bit
an I t usuall y co nsists o f r r . a

bright star like n ucleus with a train o f great len gth

-
, .

C ON U N CT N
J The n ea rest po in t O f
IO . pp o ach O f tw o a r

he ve ly bo dies to each o ther as viewed fro m th e

a n ,

E rth a .

C O N sr L LA r O N
n A fan ci ful gro upin g o f certain n eighb o
'
I . r

ing st rs to fo rm a figure o picture As the co ns tel a r .

l tio
a fU M aj o r co mp ises 7 stars said to resem b le
n o r sa r

a be o r dippe ar r .

C O N sr nL LA r O N s r r u n: Zo nra c
'
I T he con s tell tio ns o r
o . a

sign s f the z o di c are 12 di ff rent gr o ups o f st s o n e

o a e ar ,

fo e h m o th
r s determi ed o igi
ac lly by the f act
n , a n r na

th t su h o stell tio was i the z enith o a given

a c c n a n n n

m o th n .

Corn N n N T H E RY
rc A The accepted astro n o m ical system
O .
,

fi st dv
r d by C o p nicu s in 15 4 8 which m akes th e
a an ce er ,

Su th
n e t u d w hi h the E arth
e c n er nd ther ar o n c a o

pl n ts r vo lve
a e e .

C O RO N A Th . i l o f ligh t e di ti g fro m cel esti l

c rc e ra a n a a

b dy S pe ifi lly th Su s o
o . cis the m s s o f
ca , e n
’
c ro n a a

r ys s en sh o o tin
a ef o m i t in every d ir ectio n d u i r
g r n
g ,

an ecli p se .

C nu cs N r '
M OO N . T he visi ble po rtio n of the M o o n in its
fi r st o r la st quar ter C o n sequen tl y, the term to . den o te
a n ew m o o n , o r o n e in its l as t ays d .

C ar y n R G A IN . sem i tr ans pa ren t

a
rin g a ro un d S aturn
o ne o f thr ee rin
g ,
s the other two bein g b right .
 GL OS SA RY . 2 55

D r ea m . A 860th part of a circl e o r circum erence. f A

n in etieth part o f a right an gle Thus from due n o rth .

to due east is a r ectan gle an d o n e degree is a 9 oth ,

part o f that distance .

s r u c nu nN T T he apparen t ch an ge o f po sitio n o f a
.

heavenly bo dy fro m its tr ue co urse .

DO U B LE S T A R T wo stars so clo sely sso ciated as to appear

. a

to be o e to the n ked eye

n , a .

E A RT H S H IN E
-
The fain t light visible o the dark p art o f
. n

the M o o when it is ew an d caused by reflecti o o f

n n ,
n

li ght fro m the E rth a .

E A sT W ARn Run ni g in an easterly directio o r at a right

. n n,

an les to the lin e o f the N o r th S ta r

g .

E c u r sn .T he o b scurin g o f o n e hea ve ly bo dy b y an o ther n

in the sam e lin e o f visio n — as the eclip se o f the Sun

b y the pass age o f the M o o ac o ss its field n r .

E c m r r rc That plan e passin g thro ugh the cen ter o f the

.
,

Sun which co tain s the E rth s o bit

’

,
n a r .

E L e sn .T he p th o f a plan et aro un d the Sun w hich m y

a ,
a

be po pularly described as an o val o r a fl atten ed cir

cl e.

E Q U AT O R . passin g aro un d a plan et at

T he imagin ary lin e
its widest p art an d equidi sta n t fro m its P o les
, .

E q U xN o x O n e o f two o pp o site p o in ts in the heavens where

.

the S u s po sitio n in regard to the E arth causes days

’
n

an d n ights o f equal len gth .

E VE N IN G S T AR T he b ight plan et visible in the West j ust

. r

a fter sunset an d befo re n y stars are visible

, a .

FA CUL AE Small spo ts o n the Sun which e brighter th an

. ar

the rest o f the ph o tosph ere .

FrRsT Q U ART E R T he fi st o f the fo ur ph ases thro ugh

. r

which the M o o p sses e ch mo n th n d i whi h it n a

’

a ,
a n c

appe cr escen t then u t fi ll d i l e -

s as ar q ar er a e c c , a r .

FI! ED ST AR A celestial bo dy shini g with its o wn light

. n ,
25 6 GLO SSA RY .

and so far remo ved fro m o ur o wn so ar sysh l m that ih

rela tive po sitio n s eems unchanged.

GA L A! Y . A lumin o us band of star clusters. Usually

a pplied to the M ilky W ay .

G no s c Im . A fain t lumino us s otp which may be seen

on the ecli ptic n in e ty degrees a way fr o m the S un .

Also call e d the z odiacal a fterglo w .

G In n o v s R o u ded o swellin g A gibbo us moon is o n e

. n r .

th t is betw en hal f full and full

a e .

GRAVIT ATI N T he co nstan t fo rce o r pull exerted betw een

O .

tw b di s i sp ace ; l so the ten dency o f all lo o se

o o e n a

p ticl s o an y heaven ly bo dy to fall to ward its

ar e n

e t r
c n e .

G RIIIA LDI A l ge pl ain o n the sur face o f the Mo on said

. ar ,

to co n ta in squa re mil es .

Ha Rvn sr M O O N . The full mo o n o ccurrin g abo ut the tim e

of the a u tu mna l equin o x, which rises b t
a ou the sa m e

time fo hts i successio n

r s ever a l n ig n .

H RLI M E T E R
O A i strum en t used in m easurin g an gl es a n d
. n n

distan ces betw een h venly bo dies A special ly co n ea .

st u ted teles
r c pe who se o bj ective may be cut in to co

two p a ts r .

H O RIZ O N T he p o in t o f o n e s visio n wh ere the ea rth and

'
.

sky m eet T he furthest po in t in an y directio n by l and

.

o se
r wh e the sky uts o f the view
a, er c .

HU N T E R M OO N
’
N ame given to the full M oon occur rin g
s .

in O cto ber .

IN O LIN A T IO N or T IIn E ART II

’
s a xIs . A leanin g a wa y fro m
the gh t o ruf r o mp ri ht
ri
g n gle T he dip a,w a y a a .

f m n up ight po sitio n in the E arth s o rbit causin g

ro a r
’

its is t p in t t th
ax o rth sta r
o o o e n .

I N N E R P L A N ET S N ame given to the fo ur plan ets which.

ar e ea est the Sun

n — Mercury Venus E arth an d
r , , ,

Ma s r .
 when ppo site side o f the E ar th
the Sun is on the o .

M ILE . The unit o f measure fo r lo n g distances in E nglish

s pea kin g co un tries O ne sixtieth o f a degree o f the .
-

E arth s sur face at the equato r In America 5 2 80

’
.
,

feet .

MILKY War Also called the G alaxy the Milky Way is

.
,

the b o ad b an d o r ban ds o f h as y star clusters an d

r

n b ula st retchin g ac o ss the h ea vens

e r .

M IN U T E I time the sixtieth p rt o f an ho ur

. n In astron , a .

o my the si tieth p a r t o f a d egree

,
x .

M OON A celesti al bo dy revo lving aro un d the E arth o nce

.

in bo ut 2 7 days 8 hrs Its satellite The name

a , . .
,

m o o n is also pp lied to the satelli tes o f o ther pl anets

, a .

MO RN N G ST AR T he plan et which is co nsp icuo us in th e

I .

eastern sky j ust befo re dawn J upiter M ars Satur n .

, , ,

or Ven us .

N E A R T w as . T he i t des o ccurring j t a ft
us er the fi rs t an d
th i d r qua r er s o f t the M o o n, wh en its ttractio n up o n a

the sea is weakest .

N E B ULA In a stro n o my an un fo rm ed m ass o f stell a r

.
,

substan ce w hich is bel ieved to b e sta r s a n d p lan ets in

,

the m a kin g .

N E RU L A R H Y P O T H E SIS T he theo ry a dvo ca ted b y Ka n t .

,

H erschel h th t u s l an
y s t m w da o igi
o t er s,
n a o r o ar s e s r

lly
a n ebul whi ha it c o led a d c n t cted fo rm ed
a c as o n o ra

th Su e d it pl netsn an s a .

NE w M N T h fi st p hase o f the M o n i w hich it

OO . e r o ,
n

ppe
a s thi b ight c es t
a rs a a n, r r cen .

N DE T he p o i t wh the o bit f he ven ly bo dy cuts

O . n ere r o a a

c o ss the ecliptic
a r T he in tersecti n o n the celes ti l . o a

sph e e o f y t w o
r ci cle s su ch a s the e
anquat o r an d the r ,

ecliptic .

N U cLE U s A head o cen ter T he n ucleus o f a co met is

. r .

the b right p o in t fro m which the tail streams .

 GL OS SA RY 25 9

O cc uLT . Tofro m view o r co nceal In an eclipse

co ver .
,

o n e h ea ven ly bo dy o ccults n o th er T he M o o n co n a .

ti ually occul ts the st s behin d it

n ar .

O p p o sITI O N The po int at w hich t wo heaven ly bo dies re

. a

furthest remo ved f o m each o th er o r thei lo gitudes r , r n

di fl er by 1 80 degrees Thus there is an o ppo sitio o f

'

. n

the Sun and M oo n at every full moo n .

O P T IC A L D O U B LE I T wo sta rs which appear do uble to the

.

un aided eye because th ey a re in the s am e a gle o f n

visio n th o ugh pe h p s m an y millio ns o f miles ap art

, r a .

O RB IT . A path o r track In ast o n o my it alludes to the . r

pa th in space alo g which he ven ly bo dy t vels n a a ra .

O UT E R P L AN E T s T he fo u pl a ets furthest rem o ved fro m

. r n

the Sun — Jupiter S turn U an us N eptun e ,

a , r , .

P AR A B O L A A curve co mm o nly desc ibed as the i tersec

. r n

tio o f a co n e with plan e p llel with its side ; the

n a ara

two sides o f which co nsta n tly diver ge .

T he difl eren ce between the app aren t po sitio n

'

P aR A LL ax .

of heaven ly bo dy if viewed fro m the E arth s cen ter

a
’

an d f o m a po in t o n
r its su face r .

P ARA LLE L s Lines lyin g in the sam e plane which remai

. n

the same distance fr m each o the o r.

PE RIIIE LIO N The p o in t in the o rbit o f a plan et o o ther

. r

bo dy when it is n earest the sun T he reverse o f .

a
p hel io n .

P n a sr s o r THE M OO N . T he as pects o r c an ges h which the

Mo on beginn in g as a n arro w crescen t p ro
a ssumes, ,

ceedin g to full an d w anin g to an o ther cr escen t

,
.

P H O T o e IE RE T he radian t sur face which is visible to

.
,

E a rth in h abita n ts o f the Sun ; also o f fixed sta rs ,

.

P L AN E T s Specifically ap plied to the eight members o f o ur

.

s o la r system bo d ies w hich r evo l ve a ro un d the S un an d

,

receive th eir light an d w a rm th th erefr o m These are : .

M er cur y VenuS E arth M ars J upiter S aturn U ran us

, , , , , , ,
 GLOS SARY
and Neptune . B esi des these there are many sma ll

planets or planeto ids .

P LA N E T E sIu A L H YP O T n E sIs . O ppo sed to the n eb ul a r

hypo thesis this theo ry is th t o ur so la r system w a s

, a

c eated f o m
r cen t l sun surro un ded by plan eto i ds
r a ra

an d n eb ula fro m which were successively crea ted o ur

,

Sun an d its satellites .

P LAN E T o ms planets o r astero ids Sever al h un

. M in o r .

d ed such bo di s have been disco ve ed in o ur so la

r e r r

sy stem lyin g ch iefly in the vast fiel d between M ars

,

a d J up ite
n r .

P O L AR P ertain ing to
. po le o r the extremi ty o f an a ,

im gin ary line o r axis p assin g th r o ugh the E arth o r

a

o the cel sti l b o dy

r e a .

P RE O E ss N o r T IIE E Q U IN o xE s
IO A slo w mo tio n o f p o in ts .

o f the equin o n the ecliptic fro m east to west

ox t the , a

r ate o f a bo ut fifty degrees ann ually — thus ch an gin g

the tim e t wh ich co stell tio n s r e vi sible
a n a a .

P RO M IN E N E s Fl she
c f ligh t
. up ti s o f gas bo v e
a s o o r er on a

th h m p he
e c rof the Sun os Th e a e b auti full y re o . es r e

c l d f t tically hap d nd o ften th usan ds f

o o re ,
an a s s e , a o o

miles high .

P T O LE M A IC T H E RY P t lemy n Ale n dria ast o n o me

O . o ,
a xa n r r,

publi h d b ut 140 A n
s e Al m ge t i which h e
a o . .
,
an
“
a s ,
”
n

a ssu m d th t th e E th w s the c te o f u sy stem

a e ar a en r o r ,

an d u d it the
a ro th he v ly bo d i s ev lved
n o er a en e r o .

Q U A RT E R M N O n e f th
OO
e f u p h e th.ugh w hi c h o o r as s ro

the M p s es in its mo n th ly w i g d wani n g

oon a s ax n an .

R E T R GRADE T he b ckw d m vem e t w hi h the E ar th

O . a ar o n c

a ppe t h ave r lative to the fi ed st s

ar s o , e x ar .

Ru n . D e p a d wide c evices which a re visible upo n the

e n r

s u f c o f th M
r a e e oon .

S AT E LL T E A smalle b o dy which revo lves aro un d o r is

I . r
S T AR C LusTE R An apparen t clo se gro uping o f star masses
.

partly due to their revo lutio n ro und a co mmo n cen ter a ,

an d p rtly the resul t o f thei r grea t distan ce fro m the

a

eye .

SU N . N me given a to an y glo w in g an d l ight mi tting

-e

h eavenl y bo dy . In dditio n to the Sun which is the

a

t
cen er o f o ur so l a r system th ere are ma n y o th e
,
8 r

am o n gfixed stars the .

S YN O DIC P E RIO D T he in terval o f time which ela pses be .

tw een the co nj un ctio n s o f two heavenly bo dies .

TAIL ( o f C OM E T ) A n ebulo us m ss exte ding fro m . a n

the hea d o f a co met lways in a directio n way fro m , a a

the Sun .

T E N B O RARY ST ARs Stars which w x and wane and so me . a

times dis pp e r f o m view alto gether a Tho ught to b e a r .

due to frictio n caused by co n tact w ith the n eb ul o us

masses .

T RA N sIT . T he act o f p a ssin

g acr o ss a field o f vis io n , as

fo r ex am ple the tr an s it of V en us acr o s s the face o f

the Sun .

U RA N O L IT H . A meteo ri te ; a sm a ll w an derin g heaven l y

bo dy w ic h h h s a tters on en co un erin g t the E art hs ’

phe e
at mo s r .

VA R A L S A R
I B A st wh i h v ies in light givin g p p
E T . ar c ar -
ro

e ti due it is th ught t
r es, bs u ti n by th e s t o o o c ra o an o r a r,

plo sio n s o f g s
o r ex a .

VE RN A L E Q U IN x T h perio d i th sp in g wh the S un
o . e n e r en

se the E qu t
cr o s d th d ys n d n igh ts are o f
s a or an e a a

equ l len gth a U su lly M rch 2 l st . a a .

YE AR TIM E T he time equi d f r a given pl an et to

or . r re o

m ke o n e revo luti
a a o u d th Sun on r n e .

ZE N T H The po in t i th c le ti l sphere th t is ex actly

I . n e e s a a

ve ho d o r t a a gle o f n in ety degrees f ro m the

r ea , a n n

E th s plan e
’
ar .
 GLO SSA RY 2 68

ZO DIA C . An ima gin ary zo ne

d t tchin g aro un d
or gir l e s re

the celesti l sphere a d e t d an ht d grees o n

x en in g eig e

each side o f the ecliptic I t is the p th fo ll owed by

. a

the M an d all
oon f the plan ets o ro ss the sky I t is ac .

di vided i t tw elve p rt s o e f
n o e ch m
a th
,
nd n or a on , a

ma rked by a certain co n stell atio called a

“
sign o f n,

the z o diac
”
.

ZO D IA C A L L GH T I A di sk o f fain t light sur o unding the

. r

Su lyi g e
n, n the pl
n e f the ecliptic an d exten d
ar an o

in g beyo n d the E arth s o rbit

’
.
 B ll t i t 2 17
e a r x, s a r,
B t C
e a- i p i t
as s o 55 e a, s ar, C ssio p i co nstellatio n 55
a e a,
B t Cyg i d ubl t 186
e a- n o e s a r, lo c tio n o f 2m
a
,

Cast d ubl star 184 185

, ,

B t lg u t 11 2 17
e e e se, s ar, o r, o e -

Bibl th y f
, ,

e, ti
eo r i 44 o cr ea on n, C to n d P llux 220 222
as r a o ,
-
,
Ce es min pl n t 101 102
r , or a e ,
-

Bi l e a s m t p i d
’
co f 158e , er o s o ,
Ch m bers quo t d o n ann ular
a , e
15 6 n b ula
e 161
II Obse v to ry at
,

B i lid m t i h w 175
e e eo r c s o er, Ch l a r es r a
B ig Dipp G e wich f unded by 2 28
,

t ll tier, 14 co ns e a o n, r en o ,

iti u f 2(B 2 04 ;
o with o - Ch l s Wain B ig Dip p er
ar es
’

f m G t St
,

ll d 204
,

l St o e ar , or s rea ar ca e ,

Cl k f th N th 207 2m
oc o e or ,
-

Bi y t n ar t m f s ar s, d ubl er or o e
t 184
s ar s,
Bd G m
o e, t er m d an as ro no er, an
hi l w 100 101
s a ,
-

B lid S M t
o es. ee e eo rs

B iit
o thes, H dm e er s an , co n
t ll ti
s e a 10 2 11 222o n, , ,

B u G i ti t 50
r no , .
, sc en s ,

B y t W C H ym t th
r an , . .
, n o e
N th S t
or qu t d soc ar, o e ,

B ull , t ll ti
co ns e a 2 11 o n,
co veries co ncern in
186 g,
C l ium l m t f Su 40
a c e e en o n,
p
three ar ts o f, 18 7 ; co m o si p
C lli t ( IV ) m
a s o
,

f J up it oon o er,
tio n o f, 18 7 ; istin guishin g d
110
,
f
ro m ne ul a b
an d lan ets, p
C lli t t i G t B
a s o, s ar n r ea ea r,
140- 14 1 ; i rr egul ar m o vemen t s
2 05 o f, 141 ; s ee p d
o f, 14 1- 142 ;
C l di
an a s,
y f M
sco ver o on ar s,
b
n um er o f, 142 ; ro lem s p b
96
,
p d
r esen te b y, 142- 144 ; o rm s f
C t ll ti
a n cer , co n s e t lu a o n, s ar c s
of p pa th o ss i le to , 144-146 b ;
ter in , 189 ; ho w to lo cate, iden tificatio n o f, 145 - 14 7 ;
234- 235 cha n ces of E a rth co lli in g d
Can is M aj o r , co n stellatio n 2 11
,
.
with, 149- 15 1 ; as cin atio n o f f
S ee S ir ius S un fo r, 15 2 - 15 3 ; sea rchin
g
Ca n is M ino r, 220
fo r , a n in terestin
g o ccu a p
C p
a ell a , star , 11, 110, 2 18
tio n , 15 6 ; r esidue o f, or

Ca p r ico r n us, co n stella tio n 284,

co m et chi s
,
15 6p-
15 7 ; m ete
2 38 - 2 40
,
o rs f
o u n d to b e chi s a n d p
C b
a r o n , S un s en er
’
gy s to r e in , d d
ust p
a r ticles o f, 17 5

8 9-40 ; in co m ets, 18 7 C
o nj u n ctio n , p
lanets in , 8 1
al m an a c si n to sho w
Car o n b d
io x i e in ai r , 65 d g , 81
C d
ar in al p
o in ts, esta lishment b C
o n stella tio ns
, e r ivatio n dof
d
wo r , 20 1 ; a r r a n ement O f
g
C
o f, 5 7
a r n egie S o la r O serva to r , b s ta rs in to , b
y ear ly ree s G k
C lif
y a n d o ther p p
eo les, 20 1- 2 02 ;
a o rnia, 89 B ig and ittle L D pp
i ers, 208
 IND E ! 2 67

208 ; C
assio eia, 208 ; sugges p and, co m p ared
, 27 -28
; o r it b
tio ns fo r tr aci ng, 209 ; m o ve o f, 42 ; d
istance ro m Sun, 42 f
m en t o f, 2 1 0-2 11 ; so me o f cr ea tio n o f, 44 4 7
- ancient
p p
rinci al, 2 11-2 28 ; the zo i a d an d d
me ieval theo ries co n
cal, 228- 24 1 ; ho st o f unmen cernin g, 4 7-50 ; l aw o f gra v
tio n ed, rem ainin g, 24 1-242 i ti
t a o n a n d m o ti o n o f, 5 1-
52 ;
Cpo ernicus, cr ater on M oo n, s eep d o f, a ro un d
annu al o r
123 b it, 5 2 ; r o tatio n o f, o n its
Cpo er nicus, N ico laus, so lar ax is, 5 2-5 5 ; m eas urement o f
theo ry o f, 49-50 ; mo o ns o f time by ro tatio n o f, 55-5 7 ;
J p p f
u iter ro o o f theo ry o f, system o f esta l ishin g b irce d
q d
110 ; uo te o n co mets, 135 tio n s suggeste d
by r o tatio n
Co r C d b
a ro li, o u le star , 222 o f, 5 7 -5 9 ; chan o f seaso ns
C o ro n a o f S un, 8 7 -88 ca use d b y r evo utio n o f, 59
C o r o nium, element o f Sun , 40 p
62 ; co m o sitio n , weight, an d
C b
ra C
.S ea a n cer d imensio ns o f, 62-64 ; atmo s
C theo ries o f
—
rea tio n, ancient p h er e o f, 65 -6 6 ; an in n er
the, 44 49 p lanet, 68 ; d
i ameter o f, 60 ;
C
6 1 ygni , sta r, 9-10, 227 ; mo ve velo city o f, 7 0 ; d
istance o f
ment o f, 18 o ther p f
lan ets ro m, 72 ; erio p d
C yg s, co n stell atio n, 2 11, 226
n u o f revo lutio n o f, 7 2 ; theo ry
o f M o o n as d
aughter o f, 120
D y sid r l
a d e ea an mean so lar , 122 ; co mets and the 149-15 2 ;
d
,

5 5 -5 7 ; lo n gest and sho rtest, f all o f m eteo r s an meteo r

60 ites o n, 170-178, 175 -17 6, 177
D eimo s, satellite o f M ars, 98 18 1
99 E arth-shine o n M oo n, 127
D e lt a -
yra ,L st ar , 14 p
E cli ses, 8 7 d
a tes o f, 8 7-38
D irectio ns, system o f, estab d
E iso n, T A , o n w ireless sig
. .

lished by ro tatio n o f E arth, f

nals ro m o ther p
lanets, 90-91
67 E instein, A , o n co mm unicatio n
.

p
Dis lacement o f a star , 7 -8 with o ther lanets, 97 p
f
D o er el r an o n M oo n , 128 E ncke s co met, 84-8 7
’
erio p d
Dog d ays, erivatio n of term, o f, 146
2 19 q
E uino x, sprin o r vern al, 59,
D o g Star 8 0 0 S irius
. 62 ; a utum n 60
D u
o b d b
l e-
o u le, ua ru le star q d p E quino xes, p
recessio n o f the,
d
calle , 225 2 15
b
Do u le star s, co lo re an d, 182 d E r a to sthenes, p
o in t o n M oo n,
190 ; M izar and lco r, 206 A 120
b
D r aco , n e ula in , 164 E ricsso n, Jo hn, in vento r , 8 1
D ust, meteo r, 17 0 d
E ro s, astero i , 98, 108-104
p
E u ro a ( II) , mo o n o f u iter, J p
E agle S ea . uil a Aq 110
arth, a ncient co nce tio n o f, 2 p E vening star s, p
lanets calle , d
f
8 ; real acts a o ut, 8 ; meas b 77
ur emen t o f istance o f star s d
fro m, 6- 1 1 ; co m ar ative size p Facule o n Sun, 86
o f, 11 ; li e o n, de f
ndent o n b
Fire- alls, 15 6
Sun, 28-25 ; weig t o f Sun Fire mist. 8 0 0 N ebulc
268 IND E !
Fishes 8 0 0 Places H lium
e d a nent of Sun, 40 ; i n
b neb ul
. ,

Fish mo uth N e ula, the, 159

-
, 15 8 -159
a
d
Fixe sta rs, 12 - 18
; istinguish d Hercules, constellatio n, 21 1
in g lanets p r o m , 7 6-79 f star cl uster in, 189-190
Flammario n, C , uo te on velo . q d
city o i p
la nets, 71 ; on rings H ch l Si J h Th J w
ers e, r o n,
“
e e
o f S aturn , 112 l d Clu t
c e n m d by 186 s er
”
a e ,

Fo r malhaut, star, 241 H sch l Si W di

er e f
, r .
, sco verer o
U u 114 ; th
ran f bs, eo r

g
o ne

G al axy, the, 192 . S ec M il y k cite d on co lo re d an l

s
do ub le
158 ;

stars, 188-184
by, 84 ; pe secuti n o f
r o 50,

telesco e e pe inv nt d by , 107

disco very o f mo o ns o f J up l
ter by, 110 ; inves tigation of
M ilky W ay by, I”
G ym d ( Il l ) m
an e e , oo n o f Ju i p
t 1 10
er,
Gg hi cut
e ensc e n, o n er-glo w of
Inclin ti a f E rth s ax is 5 2
on o a
’

di l light 17 1
zo ac a
I t rn tion l D t Lin 58 5 9
,

G mi i nst ll ti
, n e a a a e -
e,
e n co e a o n, 184, 2 11, Io ( I ) m o f J u piter 110
—
,
, oon ,
220 22 1
G ib b o n s mo o n, 126
I ro n l ment o f Sun 40 ; in
. e e ,
co mets 187
Go atS ea a rico rn us Cp ,

Isaiah p o phet quo ted 20

Go r
.

re, uo te q d
o n M ercu ry, 82 ;
, , ,

o n the M il y W ay, 198 ; o n k J w l d Clust th 186

e e e er, e,
b
n um er o f stars an d systems, Jun mi pl t 108
o, no r an e ,
198- 19 9 Jupit pl t 41 ; d istan ce
er, an e
G
,

r a vita tio n, law o f, 5 1 f m S un 42 43 ; si

ro f - ze o
G B
, ,
rea t ea r, ancien t n ame fo r comp d with E th 43 ;
are ar
D pp
,

B ig i er, 2 04 d iv ti
er f n m
a on 48 ; n o a e, a
Gr ea t N o rthern o nstellatio n, C out p l t 68 ; di m ter
er an e , a e
2 0 2 09
8 - of 69 ; m ns o f 7 0 109 1 10 ;
oo -

G
, , ,

r ea t S uare o f q egas us, co n P v l ity

e oc f 7 0 ; pe i d o f , r o o
stell a tio n , 2 1 1-2 13 v luti
re o f 72 ; lon f o co o r o
G
, ,

reat S ta r C
lo ck o f the N o r th, 77 ; p i l h t istics
s ec a c a rac er
2 0 7 -
2 08 of 106 108 ; w ld i
-
th a or n e
G
,

reeks, p
l a nets n ame b y, 4 7 d m ki g 108 ; w ight f 108
a n e o
109 ; c m t abo ut 146
, ,

48 ; ea r ly g g
eo r a he rs of p o e s ,

hea ven s, 2 01
Grego ry , a vi ,D d quo te o n size d K l i
e v n, L d cited o so lidity
or , n

o f S un , 2 7
of E th 64 ar ,

Grim al i, d p
lain o n M oo n, 129 K ple Jer, ly ast m r ea r ro n o e ,
20 ; p utio n f 50 ; o n
ersec o ,

co mets, 135
H lla ey s
’
co met, p er io d o f, 146
Kn eph, Star o f, 2 19
acco un t o f, 147 149 -

H ar vest M o o n, the, 128 L an gley, S P cite d in ten

G
on
H T ,
. .

ea venly wins S ea . emin i alty o f sunlight, 83

2 70 I ND E !
Milk W ay, co mpo sitio n o f, 15 teched to, 158 theo ries
l y po etic tio ns o f, rega 158 ; er schel s
’

19 1 192 ; scien tific

- ries re p
ex lan a n o f, 158 -159 ; tw o

g a r d
in g, 1 92 - 195
; extent and famo us, in O rio n an d in A n
r an ce o f, 19 5 196 ; sig d ro meda, n umb er
M
- 159-160 ;
es o f ri ts in, 196 ;f p
o f, 160 ; sha es and sises. 160
S un a p b
o ssi le mem er o f, b 161 ; cla ssificatio n, 161-162 ;
197 f
distance ro m E arth, 162-153 ;
J
o hn, q
uo te , 19 1, 238d c m
o smiti on o f, 1 3 164
6 -

M imas, mo o n o f Saturn, 113 p

N eb ular hy o thesis, 76 ; state
M itto n, G E , The B o o k o f
. . ment o f, 165 -166
S t u t 1d
7 5 - 17 0 u t d p p
N e tune, lanet, 11, 18 ; sise o f,
“ q o e
q
a r s ,
o e , ;
on m ie systems o f sta rs. 41 ; d f
istance ro m Sun, 43 ;
185 - 186 an o uter p
lanet, 68 ; iam e d
M iza r, star, 206 ter o f, 09 ; satellite o f, 7 0 ;
M o n ths, o rigin o f, in zo diacal velocity o f, 7 0, 7 1 ; erio d o fp
divisio n, 229 revo lutio n o f, 72 ; co lo r o f,
M oo n, ancient co nce tio n o f, p 77 d
isco very o f, 115-116 ; ac
p
2-3 ; ecli ses o f, 37 ; o ld the co unt o f, 116-118 ; com ets
o rica co ncern ing, 4 7 - 50 abo ut, 46
1
ap
plicatio n o f l aws o f gravita N ewco mb 8 A stroao s sy or
tio n an d m o tio n t o , 5 1 -52 ; q
E veryb o dy, uo te , 64-65 ; on d
distan ce o m r f E a rt h , 1 19 -120
; size o f mo o ns o f M ar s, 98
p
eo gra hy o f, 120 ; them Y “
-
N ewto n, I d
isco veries o f,
g i
saac,
o rm t o n
a i o f , 1 20 - 122 en 5 0-5 1 ; theo ry o f, that
acter istics o f, 122 ; seas, h ave o r its, 136b
m o un tains, an d cr ater s o f, k
N ic el, element o f Sun , 40
122- 124 ; mo vemen ts o f, 124 Nile star, Siri us called , 2 19
125 ; p
hases o f, 1 25 -
12 7 ; r a te N itro gen in air, 65
of mo vem n t o f, 1 2 7 -1
28 ;
e

co nfiguratio n s o n sur ace o f, f N o r thern C

ro ss, stars which
128 - 12 9 ; recko n in g time b y,
fo rm , 226 -227

129 - 130 ; ti es d p d
r o uce b y,d N o rthern C
ro wn, cluster of
stars, 223-224
130 ; im agin e d d
co n itio ns o n,
N o rth P
o le, a pp
arent m o tio n
130- 184
M oo n s, o f l an pet s 6 9-7 0
; of
o f Sun as see n ro m , f54 -55
,
N ucleus o f co met, 137
M a r s, 97 99 ; o f u iter , 109
- J p
110 ; o f Sa tu rn , 112 113 -

M o r n in g star s, p
lan ets calle , d Occul tatio n of star b y M o o n,
129
77
M o tio n , la ws o f, isco vere b y d d b
O l ers, H , d
isco very o f P al
.

N ewto n, 5 1 -5 2 l as b y, 102
M o to s, so
r la r , 3 1-3
2 O pp o sitio n, p
l anets in , 80 ; ai
M o un tain s o f M o o n, 123 man ae sign sho win g, 8 1
b
O r its, of l anets,p42 ; of

p p
m t meteo rs, 173-17 6
Na o leo n
n a me o f,
,
a tte
to star g u
to
p
g iv
2 17
e
Or io n, co nstell atio n, 1 1, 12 18 , —
G b
ro ,

2 18 2 11 ; rea t N e ula in, 159 ;

Ne bula f
co n usio n o f, w ith co m a i
loc t o n o ,f 2 16-2 18

f
,

ets, 140 ; p eculiar interest at O ssian, extract ro m, 2 1

 2 71

2 15 ; a star gro u p , 188 189 ;

-

de iv tio n o f name
r a , 2 15
Plo w the 13 ; o e name fo r n
B ig D ipper 204
, ,

,
Po int rs st s in B ig Dipper
e , ar ,
204, 207, 208
P ar ll ls stablishmen t o f
a e , e , 57 P o le Star, 10, 202-203
tio n o f, 208 ; center o f res t
Pea y R E m teo ite
r , . .
, e r
Star lo ck o fC N o rth, 207 208
co vered b y 17 9 180
-
-

Pegas us Gr t Squ r o f
,

234 P o ns, d
isco verer o f co mets, 15 6
Periheli n plan ts at 93
,
o ,
ea
e
a e

,
,
P rocessio n o f the e uin o xes, q
2 15
P rocto r, R A , uo te o n the
. . q d
Per ie E picture o f M r S un, 43 ; on co lo re and d
r
ti n s b y 95
r,
d,
.
b a
o u le sta rs, 188
a
Pe seids meteo ric sho w r P
,
ro minences o f Sun, 3 39 ;
7 -
r
c ll d
a 17 8
e
,

,
d e
height, uratio n, and co lo r

Perseus co nstell tio n 15 173 Pto l m theo r o f U iv rse o f

, a , , ,

2 11 2 12 y y e , n e ,

48 49 ; co st llatio ns
,

Ph s s o f M n 125 128
-
re n e
co ded by 201
oo -
a e ,

Pho bo s satellite o f Mars 98 Pto l m crate o n M o o n 123

, ,
r ,

99 y e , r ,

t b e mo o n o f Saturn 112
,
R in fall c use o f 65 ,
a , a ,
113
R m S a Aries
lo cating planets
a . e
aphy
R gulus star 235
,
e , ,
R t g d m ti n in 115 e ro ra e, o o ,
Rt 1 st 11 2 1 7
disc v y o f Ceres
a r,
B ig :
, ,
Pi azzi G o er
, ,
o n M oo 124
.
n,
by 101 102
,
-
Rings S aturn s 111 112 ’ -

Pisces c n st ll tio 2 11 ; ho w
, o e a n,
, ,

to lo cate, 240 24 1 -
Sagittar ius, co nstellatio n, 237
Pl anetesim al hy o thes is, 76 ; p
statem ent o f, 166- 167
Sahara, ecli se o f, 88 p
Pla neto i s S ea dstero id s
. A Sa int E lmo s lights, 22 1
’

Pla nets, 41 ; erivatio n o f wo r , d d Satellites o f lanets, 69- 70 p

47 ; n ame b y d
reeks, 4 7-48 ; G Saturn , l an et, 41 ; istance d
o ld t he o r ie s co n cer nin g, 4 8 -50
; f
ro m nu, 42-43 ; erivatio n d
laws o f gravitatio n and mo o f n ame, 48 ; an o uter lan et, p
i
tio n as a fl ect n g, 5 1 2 ; -5
ivi
'

d 68 ; d
iameter o f, 69 ; satellites
sio n into in ner an d o uter , 67 o f, 7 0 ; velo cit f 70 i d
b y o , ; r o
68 ; ta le o f diameter o f, 69 ; o f revo lutio n o f, 72 ; co o r o f,
velo cities o f, 7 0- 7 2 ; erio s p d p
7 7 s ecial cha r acter istics o f,
o f revo lutio n a ro un su n , 7 2 ; d 110- 111 ; r in gs aro un , 111 d
weight o f a rticles o n , 7 3-75 ; 112 ; m o o ns o f, 112- 113 ; light
theo r ies co n cer n in g o r igi n o f, weight o f, 113-114 ; in an
76 ; d
istin guishin g r o m fi xe f d early sta ge o f evelo men t, d p
sta s,
r 7 6 -
79 114 ; co mets a o ut, 146 b
Plato , cr ater o n M o o n , 123 Scheiner, o n e o f isco verers o f d
P d
leia es, co nstellatio n, 15, 218 sun-sp o ts, 34
2 72 IND E !

ed the s nu, i t f m fi d
l
se p ane s ro n e 7 6-7 9

b
,

an d do u le, 182-190
M ar s b 96
t
,

Schmi o han m chart o f Mo on

Schwab e, astro no mer , 35 Summer, cause o f, 60
p
Sco r io , co nstellatio n, 11, 186, Summer solstice. 60
2 11, 237 Sun, d
ista nce o f, ro m E arth, f
p
Seaso n s, heno meno n o f chan ge 1-2, 25-27 ancient concep tio n
o f, 23 ; ca use b y E a rth s rev
’
d o f, 24 ; co mpared wi th A rc
l
o ut io n ar o un S un , 5 9- d
62 ; turus, 10 ; compa rative size
co nsta ncy in var iatio n o f, 62 o f, 11 -12 ; mo vement o f, 13
Ser viss, G
a rrett P , uo te , 10 . q d 14 ; amo ng stars o rming f
1 1 ; o n the M ilky Way, 16 ; k
M il y Way, 16, 197 ; ea rly
o n sta r cl uster
“
M essier theo rie s abo ut, 2 1-
23 ; li e o n f
189 d
h
Ea t 2 34 5 ;
Seven S isters S ea leia es
.

Sho o tin g stars, 155 ; a mislea

P d
d r
wei‘ ht an co m d
27-28 ; energy and heat o f,
2
80 n o 133
in g ter m, 169 S ee M eteo rs
.
28 -32 ; constancy o f hea t o f,
d
Si ereal t m ,
i e 5 5 -57 32-33 ; intensity o f light o f,
S o f zo iac, d
istinguishe d d p
33 ; s o ts o n, 34 ; a ily ro ta d
ro m co nstellations o f zo diac,
f
tio n o f, 34-35 ; acule o f, 36 ;
231-232 co ro na and p
ro minen ces o f,
Sirius, the D o g Star, 10, 2 11, 37 -39 ; elements existen t in ,
2 18- 220 ; a d b
o u le star , 184
40 ; lac k
o f kno wled of
d
So ium , element o f S un, 40 ; in center o f, 40-41 ; anets p
co mets, 137
b
a o ut, f
o rming so lar system ,
So l ar cycle, disco very o f, 35
S o l a r m o to rs, u se o f, 31-32
b
4 1-43 ; tri utes to m agnifi
cen ce o f, 43 ; revo lutio n of
So la r system, 4 1-43
C b
E ar th a o ut, 52-5 7 ; efi ects
'

So uthern
-
ro ss, co n stell atio n , ’
o f E a rth s revo lutio n a o u t, b
227 2 2 8i 58 -62 ; arran gement o f lanets p
So u thern Fish, co n stellatio n ,
in r el atio n to , 67— 68 ; influ

p
24 1
p
S ectr o sco e, u se o f, 12, 14, 17 ,
d
en ce o f, o n ti es, 180 ; influ
ence o f, o n co mets, 138 - 139 ,
40, 115 ; fo r stu yin g ro m i d p 14 1- 144, 152-153 ; relatio n to
n en ces o f Su n , 38-39 ; co m o p m eteo rs an d meteo rites, 18 0
s itio u o f n e u la r evealeb b y, d 18 1
15 9
S un light, intensity o f, 33
p
S ica, co n stellatio n, 236
p
Suns, gro u s and cluster s o f,
p
S r in g, ca u se o f, 5 9-60
188 - 189
S ta r , cc t f 1 2
o , as su s,
p p d
-
s a o u n n
S un-s o ts, ex l aine , 34-8 6
s t ud y o f, 3 -
4 ; e st im a te s o f
Swan, co nstell atio n, 186 S ee
n u m er b o f, 4, 12 , 197 - 198 ;
Cyg
.

m eas u r in g d
istance o f, r o m f Swift
n us

s co met,
’
174
E a r th, 6 11 ; size o f,
-
1 1-
12 ;
m o ve m en t o f, 12 -
13 ; irectio n d
o f m o ve m e t
n , 1 4- 15
; in M ilky T ail s o f co mets, 7
13 139
-

W ay, 15 - 16 ; tem o rary, 16 p Tuu

a r s, co nstellatio n, 21 1, 2 16
19 ; varia le, 19 ; b istinguishd Templ e s co met,
’
174-175