Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjectsProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Bruhns of Leipsic noted that the corona shone with an intense white
light, so lustrous as to dim the protuberances. He noticed that a ray
shot out to a distance of about one degree indicating a distance of at
least 1,500,000 miles from the sun's surface. This was unquestionably
a coronal appendage as neither the direction nor the length of the ray
varied for ten seconds, during which Bruhns directed his attention to
it. Its light was considerably feebler than that of the corona, which
was of a glowing white, and seemed to coruscate or twinkle. Bruhns
assigned to the inner corona a height varying from about 40,000 to
about 80,000 miles. But this was unquestionably far short of the true
height. In fact, Secchi's photographs show the corona extending to
a distance of at least 175,000 miles from the surface of the sun.
Therefore probably what Bruhns calls the base of the corona was in
reality only the prominence region, and the inner corona was that which
he describes as varying in breadth or height from nearly one-half to
a quarter of a degree--that is from about 800,000 to about 400,000
miles. De la Rue gives a somewhat similar general description of the
corona seen in 1860. He remarks that it was extremely bright near the
moon's body, and of a silvery whiteness. The picture of the corona by
Feilitsch (given at p. 343 of my book on the Sun) accords with these
descriptions.
On the whole, the eclipse of 1860 affords evidence according well with
the theory we have been considering, except as regards the brightness
and the colour of the corona, which correspond more closely with what
was observed in July, 1878, with the lustre and colour of the corona
in 1870 and 1871. In this respect, it is singular that the eclipse of
1867, which occurred (see preceding note) when the sun spots were fewer
in number, presented a decided contrast to that of 1860,--the contrast
being, however, precisely the reverse of that which our theory would
require, if the colour and brightness of the corona be considered
essential features of any law of association.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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