The Kalida venture. [volume] (Kalida, Ohio) 1841-1865, 1845-09-16

With so short period, the comet ought
frequently to be seen. But here sprngssup
difficulty. This comet was never seen be-
fore, and has never been seen since D. What
then, has become Of iti and where and how
did il exist before IFS discovery by Messier?
fis appearance was loo conspicuous and its
Hight too vivid to allow of the s,lpposition
that it could have been present, yet moi OBJ
served, t ,-,. ,,.,. i, ga.. (.
The law of gravtstion discovered ny Newton.
and fully developed by his ilusrious successors
enables us fully to explain this difficulty We
shall adopt the words Of Arago: 3a ha!a $40 sanj
Why has not The comet been seen epery fire. gears
and half before ITO, Because the orbi wa
then totally different from that it has since pursu-
ed
Whyhas not the comet been seen since l7701 For
the reason that its passage 10 the point of perihe-
ion in l776 took place by day; and before the fol-
lowing return, the form of the orbit was SO alter
ed, that had the comet been visible from the
earth il would not have been recognized. !.
| Lexell had already remarked, according to his
elements of ITO. that the comet ought TO pass in
the vicinity Of Jupiter in 1867, less than the ftv-
eighth part of his distance from the sun; that in
l779, when it returned to us, it would be, near
the end of August, about five hundred times near.
notwithstanding the immense size Of the solar
globe, its attractive power on the comet was not
the two hundredth part that of Jupiter. Thus il
could not he doubted that the comet had expert
euced considerable perturbations in l767 and l779;
hut it is vet necessary to establish that these
perturbations were numerically strong enough 10
explain the total want of observations, as we'll
before as after the year ITO.
The formularics in the fourth volume of the
.Mecanigue Celeste give the analytical solution of
this problem the actual elliptic orbit of comet
being known, what was its previous orbit? What
will it be hereafter, taking into account in both
cases the perturbaing effects caused by The pian-
cts of our system! .a tet
Well, then, by putting these formularies into
numbers-by substituting, for its component inde-
terminate letters, the particular elements of the
comet of l770-it will first he found that in lT67,
previous to the approach of that body to Jupiter.
the elliptic efbt which it described corresponds
not to five but to fifty years of revolution round
the sun; alterward. that in l779 on its departure
out of the attraction of the same planet the orbit
of the comet could not be completed in less than
twenty years. From the same researches it re-
suits that, before 1857, during the whole progress
of its revolutions, the shortest distance Of the
comet from the sun was one hundred and ninety
nine millions of leagues Give hundred and ninety.
seven millions of miles,) and that after l779 the
! minimum of distance became one hundred and
thirty-one million Of leagues Ghree hundred and
ninety-three millions of milesD This was still
too far removed for the comet to be perceptible
from the earth.
However singular it may appear, we are, then,
fully authorized TO say of the comet Of l770 thai
the action of Jupiter brought it to us in 1867 and
that the same action, producing an inverse effect
removed it from US in the year l779.