Meteoric astronomy: A treatise on shooting-stars, fire-balls, and aerolitesKirkwood, Daniel
Science
Meteoric astronomy: A treatise on shooting-stars, fire-balls, and aerolites
Kirkwood, Daniel
Meteors
SATURN is the seventh planet in the order of distance--counting the
asteroids as one. Its orbit is about four hundred millions of miles
beyond that of Jupiter. This planet is attended by eight satellites,
and is surrounded by three broad, flat rings. Saturn is seventy-six
thousand miles in diameter, and its mass or quantity of matter is more
than twice that of all the other planets except Jupiter.
URANUS is at double the distance of Saturn, or nineteen times that
of the earth. Its diameter is about thirty-five thousand miles, and
its period of revolution, eighty-four years. It is attended by four
satellites.
NEPTUNE is the most remote known member of the system; its distance
being nearly three thousand millions of miles. It is somewhat larger
than Uranus; has certainly one satellite, and probably several more.
Its period is about one hundred and sixty-five years. A cannon-ball
flying at the rate of five hundred miles per hour would not reach the
orbit of Neptune from the sun in less than six hundred and eighty years.
These planets all move round the sun in the same direction--from west
to east. Their motions are nearly circular, and also nearly in the same
plane. Their orbits, except that of Neptune, are represented in the
frontispiece. It is proper to remark, however, that all representations
of the solar system by maps and planetariums must give an exceedingly
erroneous view either of the magnitudes or distances of its various
members. If the earth, for instance, be denoted by a ball half an
inch in diameter, the diameter of the sun, according to the same
scale (sixteen thousand miles to the inch), will be between four and
five feet; that of the earth's orbit, about one thousand feet; while
that of Neptune's orbit will be nearly six miles. To give an accurate
representation of the solar system at a single view is therefore
plainly impracticable.
COMETS.--The number of comets belonging to our system is unknown. The
appearance of more than seven hundred has been recorded, and of this
number, the elements of about two hundred have been computed. They move
in very eccentric orbits--some, perhaps, in parabolas or hyperbolas.
THE ZODIACAL LIGHT is a term first applied by Dominic Cassini, in
1683, to a faint nebulous aurora, somewhat resembling the milky-way,
apparently of a conical or lenticular form, having its base toward
the sun, and its axis nearly in the direction of the ecliptic. The
most favorable time for observing it is when its axis is most nearly
perpendicular to the horizon. This, in our latitudes, occurs in March
for the evening, and in October for the morning. The angular distance
of its vertex from the sun is frequently seventy or eighty degrees,
while sometimes, though rarely (except within the tropics), it exceeds
even one hundred degrees.
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