Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-11-23
AURORAs AND SUN SPOTS.
Probable Causes of the Recent Great
Electric StOrm-DiscOveries of Scien-
Washington Post.

HHSHttytOW LOI.
The'superstitious who read of sun spots
and comets and, gravely shaking their
heads, pronounce them harbingers of great
disaster, have ample material furnished
them by the phenomena which are at
present disturbing the heavens to build up
their prophecies of coming evil. The
transit of Venus is close at hand, the
comet has swept the heavens with
its broad tail, and night after
night the northern heavens are illumina-
ted by magnificent aurOras. Many are
the speculatiOns and fears of these super
stitiOus people as to the result should the
comet rush into the sun or the sun rush
into the comet, or if some other equally
impossible catastrophe should happen
Scientists, however, are watching these
phenomena with peculiar interest and ad-
miratiOn, and efforts are constantly being
made to discover their cause.
The German astronomers stationed at
Hartford Conn.,, by the German Govern
ment to view the transit of Venus, while
viewing the sun through a rift in the
clouds last Tuesday, discovered an i'm
menSe sun spot in violent eruption and
constantly increasing in size. This dis
covery excited their intense interest. and
they have been making efforts to follow its
further progress. Their opportunities
have been but few, however, owing to the
clouds, which Obstructed their view of the
sun at the proper time for making Obser-
vatiOns. They think it Will soon be visible
to the eye with the use Of a smoked glass.
Mr.. Brashear, in letter to the Pitts
burg Chronicle, thus describes the great
sun spot as seen by him; Il had noticed,
he says, the ''spOt coming on to the SUMS
edge ON Monday, and concluded that it
would Fattain enormous proportions. In
the telescope it was an object of singular
beauty. Yesterday morning l examined
it closely and think in all my life / never
saw so many beautiful feathery bridges
and arms stretching out from the penum-
bral borders Of the spot across and into
the great dark nuclei. Every one of them
was more or less curved the same way.
showing clearly the direction Of the CYCLIC
mic storm. The penumbra was very much
broken up, and the many beautiful forms
taken by its extended arms and
bridges make up one of the most interest
ing sun spots on record. Its size is simply
enormous. | projected the suns image
so as to give a disc of fifty-fve millimetres
diameter. The spot then measured four
millimetres. This would give it nearly
One-siXteenth of the SUMS diameter, which
we will call $500 miles, Then one-six-
teenth of this would give $4,000 miles as
the diameter of the spot. AS it was an
irregular square, we could safely estimate
the spot to contain, | should say, 100000
square miles, There are a number of
smaller spots on the sun, but none so in
teresting as this one"
1t is theory of astronomers generally
that, through intimate magnetic cOnnec-
ton, this enormous sun spot is the cause
of the great electric storms which have
swept over the earth lately, playing with
the telegraphic and magnetic instruments
ana lighting the heavens with aurOras at
min IDrnfaecn1r 4 W.
of the magnetic connection between the
sun and the earth says that there are a
number of observed instances which rem
der 1t very probable that every intense
disturbance of the solar surface is
made sensible to our terrestrial magnetism
with the speed of light, so that the effect
of any intense disturbance in the sun
would reach us in eight and a quarter
minutes. The disturbance ON the solar
surface noticed in 1859 by Darlington and
HOdsOn, were followed Immediately by
magnetic storm of unusual intensity, dis
playing magnificent aurora on both
sides Of the Atlantic and in Australia.
Another instance of the concordance
of these magnetic disturbances on the
earth and in the sun was noticed by Prof.
Young while making a series Of spectre
scopic observations in the Rocky Noun
tains, August, 1872, Simultaneous with
the appearance of large spot then lust
coming in view around the edge of the
sun, there was great magnetic disturb
ance on the earth. The instruments in
use by Prof. Young's party were so dis
turbed that they could not be operated,
and reports from Greenwich and Stony
hurst showed magnetic disturbance at
precisely the same time.
In comparing auroral observations with
those Of the sun spots, it has been found
that there is almost perfect parallelism
between their courses. These sun dis
turbances reach their maximum every
ten or eleven years, and the maximum of
the present magnetic storms is due some
time in 1883, and this high pressure is the
cause Of the magnetic phenomena now
presented.