Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-03-22
A Storm ON the SUN.

After time of comparative quiet another
storm has burst upon the sun. Two or three
wee6s ago the great disk of the luminary shone
In the telescope with hardly spot or varia-
ton anywhere in brilliancy except the ordinary
nothing, which sometimes appears strikingly
suggestive of a mass of tremendous flames on
the tops of which the spectator is looking down
Then spot OF small size appeared and moved
slowly across the disk. Presently congeries
of little spots broke forth like an eruption sur
rounded by facula in glowing waves and tortu-
Gus banks. In day or two the outlines of a
large spot could be seen coming around the
eastern limb of the sun. 1t seemed to grow as
pushed its way across the very center
of the spot, looking like snow bridge
spot split in two and slowly disappeared. Now
the eastern edge Of the disk began to be
crowded with On-comng spots. The wrinkled
lines Of facul@ showed where the surface was
agitated. and where new spots were likely to
break forthat any moment. They came in
groups, and one huge spot with dark central
chasm capacious enough to swallow the earth
seemed to be their leader. Cloudy days inter-
vening interrupted the sight, but with every
return Of sunshiny weather the telescope re-
vealed new spots and new groups until now
the sun is spotted like leopard. The sight
with magnifying power low enough to show
the whole disk at once Is wonderful. The
spots are of all sizes, from great
caverns in whose dark purple depths
the eye fancies it can detect strange forms, mys-
FERROUS creations of the sum- to little specks that
but for their cOngregating in the neighbOrhood
OF the larger spots would hardly be noticed. It
is beautiful spectacle and only systematic OBJ
seryations and measurements can convince the
behOlder that he is witnessing such battle of
elemental forces as this earth has never beheld
since 1t hardened from rotund mass of fiery
gases into firm and habitable globe little
careful watching and calculation soon show
the real meaning Of what the telescope re-
veals. 1t is the heaving and lashng and
swirlng OF a storm, not storm in any sense in
which we understand the word from our expe-
rience here on the earth, but storm born, prob
ably. In the interior Of the sun ITSELF and exer-
csing Its fearful energy upon a ball of glowing
gases. But those gases are in the most unheard-Of
and marvellous condition Among them are MANY
whose names are familiar to students of chemis-
try, and which In our laboratories are airy things
that reveal themselves only: by their effects. In
the sun they are heated up to such q degree
that no earthly chemist would recognize them
at least not by their conduct, for In that unpar-
alleled furnace they are freed from many of the
laws which chemistry imposes upon them here
And more wonderful yet men of science tell u.s.
30 tremendous Is the pressure to which they are
that though they are gases still, they must re-
semble In their mechanical behavior rather tar
or honey than the airy substances which we
know under their names. These gases, cOntin-
ually ascending or moving away from the CENTER
become partially cooled at what appears to us as
the surface OF the sun. and fall back In showers
of hot, metallic rain! It il amid such surround
ings that the sun storms rage, and from such
that they are bOrn.-Ne,o York Sun.