Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1877-01-10

;arried to new worlds, and that as ]
our earth, visited in remote ages by |,
such fragments, was thus supplied
with the germs of that life which is !
low SO abundant on her surface, so
she is, in her turn undergoing de-
will be sent i'm fragments
through space, scattering about the
germs of life for the benefit of worlds
rs yet unpeopled. Another question
Of very great interest was that started
by Sir Isaac Newton, in the well
known suggestion that should COM
outburst of solar heat,
this earth and all the worlds
which circle around the sun could be
destroyed. or at least, cause all life to
perish from..their surface. This idea
has not, indeed, oflate received much
favor, because astronomers, noting
the small effects produced by comets
even upon inferior members of the
solar system, such as the moons OF
have come to regard comets
as Of very little weight, whose mate
rial, therefore, falling upon the sun,
could produce but Insignificant fires.
Moreover, we have learned to con-
slider the probability of the downfall
of comet upon the sun as exceeding
ly small. We know that among those |
whose paths have been properly de-
termiDed during the last few years,
only two have made very near APP
proach to the sun,-though by q
strange coincidence, one of these was
the first ever dealt with on the New
tonian principle, viz: Newton's own
comet of the year 1850. That one APP
preached the sun within less than
sixth of its diameter, and its very
nucleus must have swept the summit
of the red flames which we now
know to exist all around the sun we
see. The other was the comet of 1843,
which on the 9th day of February
in that year was about 10000 miles of
the suns surface SO that the bulk of
| its coma or hair must have swept
over the sun, and the outermost part
of its nuclues must not have only met
the solar flames, but even have reached
the low-lying bed of flame seen dur
ing solar eclipses, and called the sier-
IA. Still, these two comets only,
among those of the last two hundred
years, have come very near the sun,
and, as no mischief has happened, as
tronomers are encouraged in the be-
lief that whatever danger we may
have to fear from changes in our SUMS
tcondition, comets are scarcely to be
regarded as the probable cause of such
danger. @@
"But the news just received from
the star depths concerns us more
nearly. Ittells us of sun, doubtless
in general respects like our own,
which has met with some great catas-
topic, whose cause we cannot at pres
ent determine, but whose real nature
is unmistakable. Our sun is one
among hundreds of millions, each of
which is, probably like it, the center
of a system of circling worlds. Each
: sun is rushing along through space,
: with its trains of worlds, each bear
: ing, perhaps, like our earth, its living
freight, or, more probably, each, al
some time or other of its existence,
becoming inhabitable for q longer OF
shorter period. Thus the suns may
be compared to engines, each draw
/, ing along its well-freighted train
4 Accidents among these celestial trains
seem fortunately to be rare. A few
9 among the suns appear to suddenly
4 Chat is in the course of few hun
: dred years, which in celestial chro
:, nometry amounts to mere instantly
g to have lost a large part of their en-
ergy, as though the supply of fuel had
somehow run short. Mishaps of thai
kind have not attracted much atten.
, ton, though manifestly it would be 9
Q very serious matter if our own sur
e were suddenly to lose three-fourth
! of his heat, as has happened with thu
Q middle star OF the Plow, or ninety
! nine hundredths, as has happened
q with the once-blazing, but now scarce
Il ly visible orb, called Eta, in the kee
:. Of the star-ship Argo. But when WI
l. hear of an accident of the contrary
,, kinda sudden blazing out Will
n more than hundred times its usna
!, splendor; celestial engine who's
II energies have been over-wrought, 81
n that sudden explosion has takel
q place, and the fires, meant to worl
n steadily for the train, have blaze,
forth to its destruction-we are i'm
l. pressed with the thought that thi
r may some day happen with our owl
IS sun. The circumstances arc yer
n curious, and though they do nc
"a show clearly whether we are or ar
not exposed to the same kind of dar
O. ger which has overtaken the world
Id circling around these remote sun
9, they are sufficiently suggestive.
:" "On Nov. %, quite early in til
evening, Prof. Schmidt, the wei
~ known director of the Athens obser,
r. atory, observed star of the thir
Oh magnitude in part of the constells
ton of the Swan, where no such sta
r.. should be. At midnight the me-
m stars light was seeen to be of mari
" eddy yellow color. The news was, {
ie course spread about among the chic
lis of the different observatories, and ;
he soon as clear weather permitted, I'll
N, new conner was submitted to til
i. searching scrutiny of the spectr.
or scope. Unfortunately it had alread
e. |dwindled down to the fifth magn
as tude by Dec 2, when first it was thu
of examined, and its light has becon
nv greenish, almost blue. 1t was not ii
no. Dec. 5 that really satisfactory obse
OF vations were made. Then M. Corn
ot obtained the following very curio1
adj results: The light of the star shove
AZ the usual rainbow-tinted streak eros
Of ed by dark lines, which forms Il
ho spectrum of a star or sun, but on tn
ar rainbow tinted streak, as on dal
back ground, there was seen Il
bright lines of hydrogen, a brig
ny line belonging to magnesium Gin Il
81. state Of glowing vapor), and two OF
of er bright lines, one Of which SCENE
to be identical with bright lii
NJ shown by our suns corona during
. tai eclipse.
rim Now, a point to which Iwould CT
nd special attention is, that all the ell
I'M ments of the catastrophe, if one m,
in SO speak. which has befallen the I
ct mote sun in the Swan exists in o.
tty own sun. At times of marked di
ip- turbance parts of our sums surfa
am show the lines of hydrogen brigl
at instead of dark, which means tn
re the lines of hydrogen over tho
We parts of The sun are hotter than t
TO- glowing surface Of the sun ther
Nv We have heard, again, how Tacchi
ta- and Secchi, in Italy, attributed SOL
* exceptionally hot weather we had
I'm few years ago to outbursts of glo,
m ing magnesium. And, lastly, our 81
it'll is certainly well supplied with tn
MT element, whatever it is, which Civ
m the bright line of his corona duril
eclipscs for we'now know that Il
whole of the streaked and radiat'
corona occupying region 20 tim
tc., greater than the globe of the 81
AMI (Which itself exceeds our earth l ,25(
ice 600 times in volumes) belongs to 4
he sun. Again, though the sun h
led shone steadily for thousands of yea
Or yet so far as can be judged, the sta
hy. which, like this one in the Swan, ha7
&C. burst out suddenly: poisoning in
NO flames of hydrogen, within which Il
stars heart-core glows with mar
times its former heat, have also be-
1t for ages shining steadily amid Il
IA star depths. We know that the OF
ter which blazed out 10 years ago in Il
ed Northern Crown was one of Arg
les lander's list, star of the tenth ma
mo- nitude, and that, after glowing wi