Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-10-20
THE LIABILITY OF ACcIDENF TO THE
Earth.

l
Earth.
With the approach of each comet, and
the advent of every meteoric season-and
one of which is now near at hand-timid
souls are possessed of fears that the earth
may collide with some of the planetary or
erratic bodies moving in space, and with
disastrous consequences to the people of
our ball. Professor c. A. Young, with a
view of allaying the fears of all such, has
prepared very pleasing not to say anus
ing, paper on the subject, in which he
holds that all such liability is so far re-
moved as to make it matter of most in
fLitely small consequence to human kind.
While Sir William Thompson was justified
in saying that collisions must occur between
great masses moving out through space,
J Just as surely as that ships " steered with
intelligence to prevent collision cannot
cross the Atlantic for thousands of years
with immunity from collision" This, be-
cause there is nothing to indicate in the
stellar universe any such structural ar
rangement as is manifest in the plan
etary system. In other words, the
stars in great numbers are flying
through space as free lanoes, un'
trammeled by the laws of attraction
or central dominance. But, says Professor
Young, there are no positive evidences
that any collisions have occurred in the
heavens, though, we presume, he would
admit that some inferential testimony is to
! be found. Then, the heavens are not SO
crowded as people often suppose In fact,
the frmanent is really lonesome in its
emptiness according to our essayist, since,
| if bodies OF respectable size are considered,
they lie desolate millions of millions of
miles apart. Our nearest stellar neighbor
is more than eighteen millions Of millions
of miles from the sun. If we conceive OF
two stars at such a distance and rushing
toward each other at the rate of ten miles
a second, it would take no less than 3d.
900 years for them to meet. Herschel's
familiar illustration will be remembered
Let the sun be represented by globe two
feet in diameter, and oranges, cherries and
peas represent the different planets, and
they would be at at distances from thirty
feet to two miles away, while Centauri,
the star referred to, would be distant 5000
miles. But we ask Professor Young and
all the astronomers if, in fact, meteors and
comets do not approach very near to us!
The response is that we constantly encoun-
ter meteors, daily run against them, and
do not seem to realize it. Every
year the earth receives about
3, 900, 900 900 of meteors says
Professor Newton, and these range from
hundred weight to several hundred weight
and to merest particles, aud deposit about
hundred tons of matter daily, and in
crease the size of the earth one inch each
100 900, 900 of years. Probably the comets
are nothing but large meteors, or masses of
N
strike the sun, but several have passed
closely to it. Last years great comet
passed through the corona, and came
within 800, 900 miles of the photosphere.
But suppose a comet should strike the
earth, It is probable the consequences
would be insignificant. All the matter in
a comet of largest dimensions is vastly less
than that in the globe. No one can say ii
comet can be packed away in ones
pocket, or if it is ball of matter as solid
as iron, and hundred miles in diameter
But suppose comet to enter the sum- Pro-
lessor Young replies, contrary to the theory
OF Professor Proctor, who is something OF
an alarmist on this subject, that it is prob
able the consequences would be slight. As
the nucleus pierced the photosphere there
might be a bright flash, an outburst of
solar prominencss, and some auroral and
magnetic disturbances on the earth, but
impinging energy would be effected so far
below the visible surface of the sun as to
expand its bulk SO slightly that terrestrial
astronomers could not detect it. But sup
pose-and this constitutes the greatest fear
of some timid people-that the earth
should suddenly be divorced from the
bonds of gravitation, and go off
at tangent wildly into space
Should this happen it is likely the
world would have to travel for millions
of ages before it would encounter
another world that is, in the calculation
of chances that would likely be the result,
but though Professor Young is silent on
that head, no animal life would be in ex-
istence very soon after the bonds were sew.
ered-we should be out of our misery
speedily, for we are so frailly constructed
that existence would not be possible under
any special change of circumstances. But
If the earth should meet body equal TO