"That is right, Harry, but some day he will cool down, and the blankets
will change into beautiful oceans and seas and lakes. Then it will be
a world like ours, with trees and flowers, and perhaps people will live
there."
"The sun is so much further away from Jupiter than from the earth that
it gives it only one twenty-seventh as much light and heat. If you can
imagine the sun as a bright lamp in the sky, and someone turning down
the wick of the lamp till its light is only one twenty-seventh as bright
as it is now, you can imagine how dim the light and small the amount of
heat must be on Jupiter."
"How long does Jupiter take in going round the sun?" asked Harry.
"About twelve years," replied Mary; "and the day is only about ten hours
long, instead of twenty-four as here."
"What a short day!" said Harry, in surprise. "Then you could work only
five hours and sleep five hours. I believe I would sleep all day, and
all night, too. I must tell Nellie about that next time I see her."
"Why did not she come this morning, I wonder?" said Mary. "Perhaps she
has gone for a walk with her nurse."
"I'll tell her about my trip," said Harry generously, "when she comes
over here again. And now what else is there about Jupiter?"
JUPITER AS SEEN THROUGH A TELESCOPE.
"If you look at it through a large telescope you will see that it is
beautifully colored, as if Uncle Robert had taken his paint-box, and
dipped his brush into browns and reds, and tinted the cloud-belts around
Jupiter here and there with touches of yellow and orange, olive-green
and purple. Only an artist could get such beautiful effects. If we could
journey to one of the little moons of Jupiter----"
"Has Jupiter moons also?" asked Harry, delighted at the thought.
"Five of them," said Mary; "and I shall tell you about them later.
Supposing we could journey to one of these little moons, what a glorious
sight Jupiter would be! From the nearest moon it would look thousands of
times larger than our moon. The colors we see only faintly through our
telescopes would present a magnificent sight when seen at close range,
while constant changes would be taking place, as varied as the changes
in the clouds flitting across a summer sky. Great cloud-masses drift
hither and thither with enormous speed, driven by winds of hurricane
force. By watching the changes that take place in the clouds, we know
there must be winds blowing at the rate of nearly two hundred miles
per hour. Do you remember the cyclone Uncle Robert told us about, when
several houses were blown down and trees uprooted?"
"Yes, indeed, I do," replied Harry, "and his poor little dog Fido was
nearly killed by a falling chimney."
"Poor little Fido would not have much chance on Jupiter. The storms
there are ever so much worse than here. The strongest buildings would
be blown down in a few moments; sturdy oaks would be uprooted and blown
about by the wind like straws."
"Do the storms last very long?" asked Harry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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