The Russellville Democrat., 1881-01-13
Jupiter and His spots.

The last number of the lScientifc AJ,seri- cdn contains communication from MT. Edward E. Bernard, of Nashville, giving his own recent observations of the planet Jupiter and his now increasingly re- markable spots. Tn 1878 the appearance of the great red spot in the southern hemisphere of this "prinee of planets" excited the eager gaze of astronomers, who have ever since given it large share of their attention In October, 1879, the spot was surrounded by large sea of light, the great spot floating in the liquid sea of light Jupiter was then ap- preaching that part of it's orbit nearest to the sun, and 1t has this year passed it's perihelion, but Mir. Bernard says that as soon as the planet emerged from the neighborhood of the sun sufficiently for good observation the great spot was found to have suffered no particular change, save that the sea of light had disappeared
 The estimated size of this light red spot is about one hundred and fifty million square miles. But it is by no means the only mark of the kind on the
 monster orb On July 25th last, Mir. Barnard discovered an oblong spot cover ing an area of about twenty-four thou sand square miles, and on the night of August Is, still another, remarkable for it's black tint and for being in the north ern part of the planet, which for some time has been singularly free from such
 marks. Mir. Barnard observed this last phenomenon second time on August Is, but has reason to think it has since disappeared. But as late as November }, the English astronomer, Capron, reports four or five spots on Jupiter of nearly a black tint, and though he mentions none seen in the planets northern hemisphere, his observations seem to confirm Mir. Barnard's
 The import of these wonderful forma- tions on the breast of this volcanic star, astronomers confess they cannot divine with any certainty. That they represent unusual activity in the fiery mass of the planet itself none probably doubt The deep-hued orbs, it is generally agreed, possess greater store of thermal energy than their paler brethren; and Jupiter,
 with his broad, red equatorial belt and
 great red spot, to say nothing of the dark
 masule now reported would seem to con- firm this opinion, especially as he is so
 remote from the sun that solar heat,
 Mir. Proctor tells us, is insufficient to
 evaporate the water on the planet If
 these enormous spots are rifts in the
 cloud-belts of varying density which en-
 shroud the mighty globe, the waste of heat, radiated through the openings,
 must be very great, and we must assume that it is undergoing contraction; or, that | it is rapidly cooling. The latter supposi-
 ton is almost forbidden by the evidences
 of eruptive energy and the tempests | which are sometimes seen to sweep through its atmosphere with volicity of two hundred miles an hour. If the spots represent accumulations of aqueous va
 DOT in different degrees of density, and
 which in the act of explanation absorb
 certain colors of the solar spectrum, we
 may, perhaps, conclude that the planet is protected by its vapor-enelope from the exhausting process of radiation, the
 vapor that is condensed in the higher
 strata of its atmosphere being carelessly
 replaced by evaporation from its water
 masses But in neither case is it prob able, as our astro-meteorologists assume that the oscillations of temperature on
 this, the grandest of the planets, exert
 any appreciatiable influence on the me- teorology of our own orb.