The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1874-08-27
Comets.

OF all the OD1ectS with which aStrOnO-
mers have to deal, comets are the most
mysterious. Their eccentric paths, their
marvellous dimensions, the strange
changes to which they are subject, have
long been among the most striking of the
wonders of astronomy. There is some
thing specially aweinspiring, too, in the
thought of the gloomy domains of space
through which the comet that visits our
system for brief time has for countless
ages been travelling. Ordinary modes Of
measuring space and time fail us, indeed,
in speaking of these wonders, or at least
convey no real meaning to the mind.
The comets which come from the star
depths-and observation renders it all
but certain that some have done so-can-
not in any case have pursued a voyage
less than twenty billions of miles in
length and cannot have been less than
eight million years upon the road. That,
too, was but their latest journey. From
the last sun they visited to our own sun,
such was their voyage; but who shall say
sued, or how many they will complete
after leaving our suns neighborhood, be-
fore the time comes when some chance
brings them near enough to disturbing
closed one? And even those comets which
are now known to follow closed path
returning again and again to the
neighborhood Of the sun, need only be
studied thoughtfully to present similarly
startling conceptions No matter what
theory Of their origin we adopt, we are
brought face to face with the thought of
time intervals so enormous that practi-
cally they must be viewed as infinite.
If we take the assumption that a comet
of this order had been travelling on a
path of parabolic or hyperbolic nature
toward our sun, had been captured by
the disturbing attraction of planet,
and compelling thenceforth to circuit on
an oval path of greater or less extent,
yet according to all laws of probability,
how many times must ithave fitted from
star to star before it was thus captured?
For the chances are millions to one
against SO near an approach to a planet
as would insure capture. But if, appalled,
by the enormous time-intervals thus re-
vealed to us, we turn from that assump-
ton and find within the solar system
itself the origin Of the periodic comets,
how strange are the theories to which
we are led! Those comets which come
very near to the sun may have had a
solar origin; and those which approach
very near the path of one of the giant
planets may have been propelled from
out of such planet when in it's sun-like
youth. Even then, however, other comets
remain which are not thus to be &C
counted for, unless we regard them
as derived from planets outside
Neptune, hitherto undetected, and
perhaps detachable in no other
way. And when we have taken such
theories of cometary origin not, indeed,
for acceptance but to be weighed amongst
possibilities, how stupendous are the con
ceptions to which we are thus intro
duced! Suns (for what is true Of our sun
may be regarded as probable Of others
vomiting forth cometic matter SO violent
~ as to communicate velocities capable
of bearing such matter to the limits or
beyond the limits of the solar system:
planets now passing through later stages
of their existence, but presented to us
according, to such theories as once in
sun-like condition and at that time capa-
BILE. Of emulating the contemplating
feats of the great central sun.
Are these thoughts too wild and fanci-
full to be entertained? They may appear
SO; yet where are we to find others less
amazing? The comets of the various
orders-short-period, long-period and
non periodic-are there. Their existence
has to be in some way accounted for; or
if such explanation is at present impos-
sible, as seems likely, we may yet follow
the various lines Of reasoning which pre-
sent themselves. And We have very
little choice. Take . comet Of long
period passing near the orbit, let US say
Of Uranus-even - Temples comet, the
parent Of the November meteOrs, is
known to do Either that comet has been
gathered in from some outer space by the
sun and compelled to follow its present