Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1874-07-21
From the N. z. World
ALL ABOUT COMETS.
COggia'S Comet.

COSSIa comet.
The relations of comets to the
solar system of which they form a
part are in very many respects not
fully determined, but so much about
them is already known that not even
the Republican party, which has ours
ed the country with negro suffrage,
wholesale corruption, a protective
tariff, and irredeemable rag money
can now be expected, like the guilty
nations in THoMsoN's poem, to
'tremble" at the awful train projects
ed Ger the heavens" Excepting OF
course the black Republicans of the
Southern States, voters to whom
GRANT owes his election, and equally
ignorant human creatures in other
parts of the earth, not even a ''pass-
ing terror" does the illustrious stran-
ger in our northern sky now "shed on
gazing natIons." So far has human
&C eGce progressed since the day when
Rome was terrified at the comet,
visible at noon>day which appeared
shortly after the murder Of CESAR,
and SO rapid has been the late of our
increasing knowledge in these latest
years, that acute criticism would
confidently assign the following verses
to no contemporary poet, but to some
poet of at least half a century ago /:
''skred from the pail of glory riven
That hsshest in celes tial gale
Broad pennuu of the King of Heaven!
" hste'er portends thy front of fire.
AID streaming locks so lovely pale,
Or peace to man, or judgments dire,
Stranger of Heaven, BID thee hail,''
The sun with Lis revolving planets
(including the flrthest. Neptune.
which is thirty times more distant
from the sun than the earth IS, and
the earth is 92,000,G0 of miles, may
be conceived Of as traversing a por
ton of the space of the universe of
the figure, shape and proportions of
a nearly fat plate. In other words
the planes of the orbits Of none of
the great planets make more than an
angle of seven degrees with the plane
of the ar.h's orbit. Indeed, all
except Mecury make an angle of less
than half seven degrees. This fiat
plate must then be imagined as about
100000, 900 miles across from rim
to rim.
Now, the seemingly mOtioniess
stars about us are suns, centres Of
evcSan,c o,6 "a, ,,,nfin,, Ton 1;iya ,,,r
own suns group. But so far off are
they from the farthcst rim of the great
fiat plate which images the space
our group occupies, that the very
nearest star of all is not merely 30
times, but 200, 600 times farther from
tie sun than the earth is Figures
will scarce express the time a cannon
bali at its highest velocity would
take to 60 from the farthest planet
of our SUMS gronp tn the nearest star,
In twelve years it could traavel from
the earth to the sun. Light waves
going 1872, 900 miles a second could
in a day 60 three or four times across
the plate. Then for three years light
must travel to reach solid ground
again, from the tarthest planet to
the nearest star; fifty years to reach
the pole star.
Thus there is plenty of unoccupied
room about the thin, fiat, but inn
mensely wide space in which our
solar system rolls. Now comets
arrive from every quarter of space
above, below, and around this dish,
at every angle to its surface. 60
around the further side of the sun
and off again. The planes of their
orbits are not level with the planes of
the orbits of the planets, that of
CoGGIA's comet, for example, makes
with the earth'S obit an angle of 6S
degrees The angle which the axis
of its orbit makes with the line of
of the two orbital planes
we have not seen stated. The orbits
of some comets are closed curves,
elipses more or less elongated.
Such comets reapprar in their rounds. |
ENCKE S comet makes in less than
four years. HALLEY's comet takes
nearly seventy seven years. ENCKE's |
comet goes about the sun inside
orbit znd returns before it |
passes the distance of Jupiter's orbit. |
HALLEY's comet circles about the |
sun far with the earth'S orbit, and |
goes father away from the sun than
any planet ever goes (as s is to y, |
yet twice does it complete its total
circuit. and far away is it upon IFS
third, before Neptune has completed
ore of its vast rounds-the outside
rim of our imagined fiat plate. The
comet of 1874 takes 100000 years
for its period, but at its fathest reach
it will be but ffieth part of the
long road to the nearest other sun.
A comet whose orbit sbold reach
lalf way 20 the nearest, would take
l 1000, 900 of years to return.
There are some of these periodic
whose return is calculated
within short limits, and whose ap
,earances have been successfully
'egistered many thousand years ago
" the Chinese and for two or three
thousands years by Mediteri anean
md modern nations The record
md our present knowledge enable us
o select and prove the reappear>
.ncts. But there are many more
.omets of which the return cannot be
,redicted, because the curve of their
bits appears to open widely in a
'arabola of closing and returning in