Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-06-03
sntnrn and His Rims.

Numerous have been the theories To ac-
count for the singular accompaniment ~
rings which attend the planet Saturn. To
those astronomers who were first enabled
to observe this peculiar phenomena it ap-
peared as a single ring, and Maupertuis
thought that il was comets tail cut OH
by the attraction of the planet as il passed
and compelled to circle round it thence
forth and forever. Button thought the ring
was the equatorial region of the planet,
which had been thrown of and left re-
volving while the globe to which it had
belonged contracted to its present size
Other theories also went upon the aSsump-
ton that the rings are solid. But if they
are solid, " asks Knopicdge, how is it that
they exhibit traces of varying division and
reunion, and what are we To think of GER
tain mottled or duSky stripes cOncentriC
with the rings, which stripes appearing to
indicate that the ring where they occur is
semi transparent, also are not permanent" ?"
Then, in regard to important physical
changes whiGh appear to be going on in
those rings, KHoWiedge again asks: What
are we TO think of the growth within the
last seventy years of the transparent dark
ring, which docs not, as even air would feI
tract the image of that which is seen
through it, and that is becoming more
Opaque every year? Then. again. how is
that the immense width of the rings has
been steadily increasing by the approach of
their inner edge to the body of the planet?
The bright ring, once $4,000 miles wide,
was 5000 miles wider in Herschens time,
and has now a width of 2S, 800 on a surface
of more than 1900 100000 of square miles,
while the thickness is only u hundred miles
or less
In 1C1- - co,t;,,,,oe .l,,, ,o,,,o ;o,,r,,,i
j. Clerk Maxwell obtained the Adams
prize of the University of Cambridge for
an essay upon Saturn rings, which showed
that if they were solid there would be
necessary to stability an appearance alto
gether different from that of the actual Sys-
tenn. But If not solid are they fluid? Are
they great isolated ocean poised in the
Saturrian mid-air? If there We're such an
ocean, it is shown that it would be exposed
to influences forming waves that would be
broken up into fluid satellites
But possibly the rings are formed Of
flights of disconnected satellites, so small
and so closely packed that, at the immense
distance to which Saturn is removed, they
appear to form continuous mass, while
the dark inner mass may have been re-
Gently formed by satellites drawn by dis
turbing attractions or collisions out of the
bright outer ring, and so thinly scattered
that they give us only sense of darkness
without obScuring. and of course without
refracting the surface before which they
spin
This appears to be the most rational So
luton of the problem, and to the excessive
bulging of SatuTn'S equator, which deter
mines the line of superior attraction ON
that planet. The physical changes which
appear To be going ON within the rings OF
Saturn and those upon the body itself of
Jupiter are just now the great attraction
for astronomers, and appear to be givingus
something of an insight into the great
problem of world building.