The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-08-12
Four Planets in Sight.

Not often do the starry heavens show us
four strongly shining, bright planets in
one night, but this has been for some time
past the position of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn
and Venus. First comes into view that
giant pla1et-that vast orb, whose diam
eter is eleven times and his volume about
j 800 times that of our own globe-Jupiter,
the planet of the mighty cloud envelopes,
whose continued overshadowing of the
planet himself has led astronomers to
doubt if telescope vision has ever yet
really penetrated these enormous layers
of vapor to the surface of the planet itself.
Jupiter is seen soon after dark almost d.
rectly in the zenith, his position at eight
O'Clock being little west and south of it;
and his slow and majestic sweep around
the sun, which requires twelve of our
years, scarcely better COMFORTS with his
vast dimensions than does his apparent
Journey every night through the skies Of
earth. He sets not far from midnight.
Proctor believes Jupiter to be still mass
of seething, internal volcanic fire, giving
out heat like sun, and having but
a very slight crust cooled as vet,
and that subject to continual fiery out
bursts and overflows; while the vast
cloud belts, a thousand miles deep, are
either partly Of volcanic origin, or are
discharging upon the planet itself such
floods of sulphur-charged ram as we can
not imagine. Mars next comes in sight.
He rises red away in the southern part of
the western hOrisOn soon after dusk, and
by nine O'Clock is a conspicuous object
well up in the southern heavens, and
easily Hstinguishable by his ruddy hue.
1t is good time to scan Mars through a
good telescope, for it will be two years
before he is again in so favorable a posi-
ton as he, has been in for the last month,
and will be for little time longer. That
bright star of the ruddy hue that comes
up almost in the southeast soon after dark
is the neighbor world which, of all the
planetary system, has presented the most
interesting field for astronomical study,
and best rewarded such studies. 1t is
pretty definitely decided that this ruddy
hue is due to some quality or characteris-
tic of his soil. Mars, IA smaller planet
than Earth, presents number of features
that seem to warrant the conclusion that
his more general laws and features are
something akin to those of our own
world He has an atmosphere; lie has his
season of winter and summertime region
of snow and ice around the southern pole
annually and visibly decreasing and in
creasing IN what may be summer and
winter. There are on that distant world
oceans and continents; this much at least
is certain. Not such oceans as the At
lantic and Pacific, but strange, bottle
shaped seas, of no great extent compared
with Earth's greatest Whether they are
ever frozen or not, nobody on earth yet
knows, but it is Mr. Proctor's belief that
Mars, and older planets than ours, has
gone far past his period Of greatest life,
and is fast approaching, if he be not al
ready entering, the cold and lifeless condl-
ton of such bodies as our moon, whose
internal heat is exhausted Later, rising
wan and far, pale but luminous ghost of
a planet in the eastern sky, comes up
great Saturn-the ringed world. This on
some accounts, is ue most interesting
study of all the planets; chiefly because of
the mobility and uncertainty of its oc-
casionally shifting shape, and because of
its giant illuminated rings and its
eight attendant moons. Its enormous
distance also invests it with certain in
terest which would be wanting in near
object. 1t is ascertained that its density
does not exceed that of water; and the
probabilities seem to favor the conclusion
that Saturn is still globe of molten mat
ter-a world of liquid fire. Itsaspect seen
on clear night through good glass, as
the great ]emoncolored planet, girdled
with its vast elliptic rings, goes sailing
silently across the field of vision, is beauti-
full and interesting beyond that Of sny
other. Much later-in fact in the early
dawn of the coming morning-Venus
comes resplendently into view. Most
brilliant of all the planets to us, because
she is nearer to us and to the sun, this re-
markable sister world, nearest and ap-
parently most like our own world, is never
more brilliant, never more beautiful, than
when, as the morning star, she sheds the
luster of her golden (but borrowedD beams
upon the earth in the stiffness of the clear
morning. Venus will probably always be
difficult object of study, because Of her
proximity to the sun, but it is found that
there are reasons for believing some of her
mountains to be equal in height to the
highest of our own world. -Ha,Vord Times.