The celestial worlds discover'd : $b or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planetsHuygens, Christiaan
Science
The celestial worlds discover'd : $b or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planets
Huygens, Christiaan
Cosmology -- Early works to 1800; Life on other planets -- Early works to 1800; Plurality of worlds -- Early works to 1800
This Poſition of the Moons, in reſpect of their Planets, muſt occaſion
a great many very ſurprizing Appearances to their Inhabitants, if they
have any, which is very doubtful, but may for the preſent be ſuppos’d.
An enquiry into our Moon may ſerve for all the reſt. Its Globe is
divided into two Parts, in ſuch a manner, that thoſe who live on one
Side never loſe the ſight of us, and thoſe on the other never enjoy it.
Except only ſome few who live on the Confines of each of theſe, who
loſe us, and ſee us again by turns. The Earth to them muſt ſeem [The
Aſtronomy of the Inhabitants of the Moon.] much larger than the Moon
doth to us, as being in Diameter above four times bigger. But that
which is moſt ſurprizing, is, that Night and Day they ſee it always in
the very ſame part of the Heaven, as if it never moved: ſome of them as
if ’twas falling upon their Heads: others ſomewhat above the Horizon,
and others always in the Horizon, ſtill turning upon it ſelf, and
preſenting them every twenty ſour Hours with a View of all its
Countries, even of thoſe that lie near the Poles (I could wiſh my ſelf
in the Moon only for the ſight of them) yet unknown and undiſcovered by
us. They have it in its monthly Wane and Increaſe, they ſee it half,
and horned, and full, by turns, juſt as we do the Body of the Moon. But
the Light that they receive of us is five times larger than what we
receive from them. So that in dark Nights that part that hath the
Advantage of being towards us, receives a very glorious Light from us,
tho’ Kepler thought otherwise. Their Days are always of the ſame Length
with their Nights; and the Sun riſing and ſetting to them but once in
one of our Months, makes the time both of their Light and Darkneſs to
be equal to 15 of our Days. If their Bodies were of the ſame Materials
with ours, thoſe that have the Sun pretty high in their Horizon, would
be almoſt roaſted in ſuch long Days. For the Sun is not farther from
them than he is from us. This will be the Caſe of thoſe that live upon
the Borders of the two Hemiſpheres we mentioned; but thoſe that live
under the Poles of the Moon will be juſt about as hot as our
Whale-fiſhers about Iſland and Nova Zemla are, in the Summer-time: who
are in ſo little danger of being roaſted, that in the middle of their
Summer, in their Days of three Months length, they very often find it
extreme Cold. I call thoſe the Poles of the Moon, round which the fix’d
Stars ſeem to turn to its Inhabitants, which are different from ours,
and alſo from thoſe of the Ecliptick, although they move round theſe
latter, at the diſtance of five Degrees, in a period of nineteen Years.
Their Year they count by the Motion of the Stars, and their return to
the Sun, and ’tis the ſame with ours. They can eaſily do it, becauſe
they have the Stars Day and Night, notwithſtanding the Light of the
Sun: for they have no Atmoſphere (which is the only reaſon that we
don’t every Day enjoy the ſame Sight) to hinder their Obſervations. Nor
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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