Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-12-22
JUPITER IN PERIHELION.

Jupiter has reached its perihelion, OF
nearest point to the sun. This is an
astronomical event of considerable i'm.
ance, as it occurs only once in about
| twelve years. As the planet is some
millions of miles nearer the earth than
usual, an excellent opportunity is Civ
en- for the study of its features. Even
the smallest telescopes will now show
some of the wonders of this great plan
ct and its system of satellites. and with
large telescopes astronomers hope,
within month or two, to add much
to our knowledge of the chief member
of the suns family Jupiter will re-
main the leading brilliant in the sky
throughout October, shining so bright
" that even Sirius must temporarily
yield the palm.
There is another reason for the in
terest that Jupiter's arrival, at perihe-
lion excites. More than year ago
some professed scientific person on the
Pacific slope wrote pamphlet on the
terrors ofthe perihelia of the four great
planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune, which, it was represented,
would occur nearly simultaneously, and
with those planets in conjunction, fear
full results to the earth were predicted.
The false alarm was spread by other
pretended savants, and, no doubt,
awoke the fears, not merely of the ig-
norant, but of persons who knew
enough of astronomy to be aware Of
the gigantic attractions that the plan
cts exert upon one another Stories Of
plaques, pestilence, famine and death
were based IL. on the supposed inHu-
ence of the perihelia Mr.. Proctor and
other astronomers sought to counteract
the effect of this by showing, in the
first place, that it was not true that the
planets named would all be in perihe-
lion together. In fact, Saturn does not
reach its perihelion until 1885. Uranus
will be in perihelion next spring, but
Neptune will not reach its nearest
point to the sun until six or seven
years hence 1t was also denied by
scientific men of high authority that
there was any reason to fear evil re-
suits to the earth, even though the pre-
dicted perihelia should occur very near
together. Still, alarm was felt, and
no doubt many persons will be pleased
to know that Jupiter, the most power
full of all the planets, has reached the
dreaded perihelion point, and is already
turning to retrace his steps, without
having in any way injured his sister
planet the earth.
That the sun has felt the approach
of the great planet, as is shown in the
prevalence of vast sun spots and out
bursts of gaseous matter, is not i'm
probable, and through the reflex action
of the sun upon the earth our planet
may, even now, feel the same influence
in violent atmospheric phenomena. 1t
is difficult to realize the enormous pow
er of the bright speck, Jupiter, shining
so quietly in the sky. A recent writer
has shown that the power which the
sun has to put forth to hold Jupiter in
his orbit is equal to the combined
strength of l70,000,000 bars of solid
steel, each mile in diameter Jupi-
ter's pull upon the earth, according to
the same authority, is equal to the
strength of $4,000, 900 bars of steel,
each of them one foot in diameter So,
if the mere power of gravity were all
that was required to make Jupiter's
approach dangerous to the earth, evil
IDENTIFY he is not lacking in the power.
But no one need fear that the sister
hood of worlds which acknowledge the
dominion of the sun will prove mutu-
ally destructive -New York Sun.