The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-05-19
Dangers from Comets.

Such a comet as that of 1911, which.
though 1T never approached the sun
within 90,000,0 600 miles, yet displayed
greater splendor and greater cometic de-
yelopment than comets which have all
but grazed the solar surface, would be q
very dangerous visitor if its course
ehanced to be so directed as to carry 1T
straight toward the sun. And there
may well be comets rs far exceedin g
that of 1871, as this exceeded the comet
of 1843, while the course of any comet
may well chance to be SO directed as to
carry it straight toward the very center
of the sun instead of passing grazingly
by his orb, as did the comet of 1913. OF
course the chance of a very large comet
visiting the solar system on just such a
course is exceedingly minute. Still the
event is altogether possible. There can
scarcely be a doubt that If the event oc-
CURED the result would be disastrous for
the present inhabitants of the solar sys-
tenn. The downfall of millions and mill
lions of masses, each weighing many
tons Ga fair suppositinn as to the average
weight of the meteoric attendants on so
large a comet as we are considering), st
the rate of $50 to $50 miles per secon3.
upon the SUMS orb, could not fail to be
an enormous, though short-lasting, ac-
cession of solar splendor and of solar
heat, el1angewhich could not but prove
destructive to every form of life exist
ing on the earth or any other inhabited
planet-
The chance of such a catastrophe is
small It is so small that not one sun
in millions might be expected to suffer
in this way during thousands of years.
fFor we must remember that our sun is
-. fe,, offs an
that whatever danger he is exposed to
threatens presumably each member of
that fanlily) May we not in this way
test at once the reality and the extent
of the danger? If any sun among the
millions, the tens, nay, the hundreds of
millions, visible in the telescope should
sustain the direct impact ofs very
large comet, and should thereby for a
short time increase greatly in heat and
lustre. that sun would that time be vis-
IDLE without a telescope aid. Probab-
" even the faintest star which the
. most powerful telescope can just show
us would become visible to the naked
eve during such an outburst of light and
heat.
Turning to the stars to see what evil
dence they have given, we find that
there have been occasionally just such
changes among The stars as we should
be led to expect from what the comets
have taught us. We find that on the
one hand some stars have suddenly I'M
creased in luster SO greatly as to pass
from absolute invisibility to great bright
ness Tin one or two eases even to q
brightness exceeding that of first mag
nitude starr, while on the other hand
these cases have been so few, when the
enormous number of stars is taken into
account, as TO show that the danger in
the case Of any given star is exceedingly
small. Among Ill the hundreds of mil
hons of suns Working steadily at their
task Of ruling and nourishing the worlds
that circle around them, not one in ], 900
has during the last 3, 700 years met with
an accident of the kind considered, even
If we assume that every appearance Of q
so-caIled new SCAR is to be regarded
as In reality case of solar outburst,
and has been In reality brought about
by cometic or meteorie downfall Con-
eeiving that of two such cases submitted
10 spectroscopic investigation lthe So