Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-02-26

the effect of the comets down.
fall, and that would be the utmost
it could do it is certainly doubt
full whether it could produce any effects
upon the earth that would be disastrous.
Therefore cannot regard the earth as
being in any danger from the fall of a
comet into the sun. At the same time, if
body of very great mass should fall into
the sun, for instance the planet Jupiter.
it would doubtless produce disastrous eff
fects upon the earth. l may say / con-
slider 1t not improbable that if the earth
ever is destroyed by fire, the cause will be
the collision of some body with the sun,
but l do not believe comet will ever
produce that effect"
| Are there any other bodies known
which could possibly come into collision
with the sun, and which are of sufficient
mass to cause disaster to the earth?"
cit is possible that our sun, in its jour
ney through space, might come into col
! Ii ion with some other body of the same
order of magnitude, as another sun; but
| the probabilities of such thing happen
ing are far less than the bullets of two
hunters who happen to be shooting squir-
| rels in the same wood should collide in
| the air.
"Mr. Proctor mentions the case of the
star that in 1866 suddenly blazed out with
many times it's former blilliancy, in the
Northern Crown, as showing the proba-
BILE effect of the downfall of comet into
sun. What is your view of THAR"
II cannot think that such outbursts
are caused by comets. The cause may be
a collision of some sort, but in that case
the colliding body must have a much
greater mass than that of a comet, or else
the star must be much smaller than our
sun. One hypothesis is that outbursts of
light in stars may be due to eruptions IN
the interior of a sun which is crusting
over. 1t is not impossible that our own
sun may, in the curse of ages, come to
this condition, the surface gradually
solidifying as that of the earth has done.
Of course this process could not begin so
long as the sun remains a sun in the
sense in which we understand the word.
don't accept the idea that the variation
IN the light of such stars as Mira can be
produced by the visits of comet.'
"Since so much depends upon the
question of mass IN this matter, 1t would
be interesting to know how the mass of
comets is Judged
Gin that respect all of our observations
give negative results, so that, while we
do not know that it must be small
| much too small to threaten disaster to the
earth by falling into the sun. Various
considerations show the smallness of the
mass of comets. For instance, number
of comets, including some Of the larger
ones like Lexell's, have passed close to
some Of the planets in their voyage
through the solar system, and if they had
possessed mass equal to only
one one thousandth of that of
the earth they would have caused
perceptible perturbations in the
motions of these planets or their satel-
lites, but no such effects have ever been
observed. Again, in all cases where
comets pass over stars the stars are seen
shining through $4,000 miles or more of
comet with hardly any diminution of
brightness. This comet of 1880 was not
one of the largest in respect to mass, al
though it had long tail. DR.. Gould
described it as having 70 perceptible nu-
cleus, the head appearing cloud-like and
filmy, and not much SURPRISING the tail
in brightness. The comet of last summer
was apparently much more massive 1t
belonged to the class OF great comets, yet
stars were seen shining through it close
to the head with scarcely any loss of
light"
elbow about the great comet of 1911,
which is said to have been unusually mas
sive?"
''That was tremendous fellow, nearly
equal in diameter to the SUN itself. Prob
ably it had the largest mass of any comet
ever seen. If such comet as that fell
into the sun it would give great deal
more than four days supply of heat, but
even then don't think 1t would upset
things in the solar system. That comet
never approached very close to either the
earth or the sum- At its nearest it was
farther away from the sun than the
earth is
"There is one other important
consideration. A comet that goes very
near to the sun will be torn to pieces
from lack of sufficient conference
to resist the divelent action to which it
is subjected. So it can never come down
upon the sun as single body, but must
fall IN portions distributed along through
considerable length of time. AS to this
particular comet of 1880. If it were iden-
teal with the comets of 1S43 and 1868,
and were contracting it's period and pre-
pairing to fall into the sun, there ought to
be nearer approach to the sun at each
revolution. But there is no evidence of
such approach, and, as far as we
can judge from the data, the
closest approach of all was made by the
earliest of the three. The data
however, concerning the comet of 1868
are so meagre that not much can be made
out on that point. l may say l deem it
certain that the comet of lS43 and also
that of 1880, and any other comet which
approaches at Its perihelion close enough
to brush the corona of the sun, must
eventually come down. But, to repeat, l
do not anticipate any disastrous effects"
"Did the observations of last summer
furnish any new knowledge concerning
the composition of comets3''
every little absolutely new, but they
established some things that were regard
ed as pretty sure before. For instance,
this much is now certain, that comets
have as one conspicuous component
great quantity of some hydro
carbon gas, which gives the same spec
trum as that Of ordinary coal gas. The
spectrum is the low temperature spec
trum of hydro-carbon, the same as that
of the blue base of an ordinary gas fame.
and not the spectrum given by the same
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