Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-02-28
HEAVENLY BODIES.
PROGRESS WHICH HAS BEEN MADE
 IN ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE.

The Great Change Which Has Taken
 Place Since 1sOO-The Wonders of Our
 Own System-Problems Infinite in Num-
 ber and Extent.
 Looking back to the year 1890 we are as- tonished at the change. The comparatively simple science of the heavenly bodies known to our predecessors, almost perfect as far as it went, incurious of what lay behind its grasp, has developed into body of manifold powers and parts, each with its separate mode and means of growth, full of strong vii tality, but animated by a restless and un- satisfied spirit, haunted by the sense of prob lems unsolved, and tormented by conscious impotence to sound the immensities it per petually confronts.
 Knowledge might then be said to be bounded by the solar system; but even the solar system presented itself under an aspect strangely different from that it now wears. It consisted of the sun, seven planets and twice as many satellites, all circling har- moniously in obedience to universal law, by the compensating action of which the in- definite stability of their mutual relations was .ecured. The occasional incursion of a comet, or the periodical presence of single such wanderer chained by planetary or solar attraction to prevent escape to outer space, availed nothing to impair the symmetry of the majestic spectacle.
 Now, not alone have the ascertained limits of the system been widened to 1000, 900 900 of miles, with the addition of one more giant planet and six satellites to the ancient classes of its members, but complexity has been given to its constitution baff1ing description or thought. Two hundred and seventy cir culating planetary bodies bridge the gap be- tween Jupiter and Mars, the complete inves- tigation of the movements of any one of which would overtasb the energies of life time. Meteorites, strangers apparently to the fundamental ordering of the solar house hold, swarm, nevertheless, by millions in every cranny of its space, returning at regu- lar intervals like the comets, so singularly associated with them, or sweeping across it with hyperbolic velocity brought perhaps from some distant star. And each of these cosmical grains of dust has theory far more complex than that of Jupiter; it bears within it the secret of it's origin and fulfiils func- tion in the universe.
 THE SUN AND PLANETS.
 The sun itself is no longer q semi-fabulous, fire girt globe, but the vast scene of the play of forces yet imperfectly known to us, offering a boundless field for tho most ardu- ous and inspiring researches. Among the planets, the widest variety in physical habi- tudes is seen to prevail, and each is recog- nized as world apart, inviting inquiries which, to be effective, must necessarily be special and detailed. Even our own moon threatens to break loose from the trammels of calculation. and commit ''errors" which sap the very foundations of the lunar theory and suggest the formidable necessity for its revision. Nay, the steadfast earth has for feited the implicit confidence placed in it as a timekeeper, and questions relating to the stability of the earth's axis and the constancy of the earth's rate of rotation are among those which it behooves the future to answer. Everywhere there is muftiformity and change, stimulating curiosity which the rapid development of methods of research offers the possibility of at least partially gratifying.
 Outside the solar system the problems which demand a practical solution are all but infinite in number and extent. And these have all risen and crowded upon our thoughts within less than 100 years. For sidereal science became recognized branch of astronomy only through Herschels dis covery of the revolutions of double stars in 1902. Yet already it may be, and has been called "the astronomy of the future," so rap idly has the development of keen and uni versal interest attended and stimulated the growth of power to investigate this sublime subject. What has been done is little-is scarcely beginning; yet it is much in com parison with the total blank of century | past. And our knowledge will, we are easily persuaded, appear in turn the merest ignorance to those who come after us. Yet it is not to be despised, since by it we reach garment of the Most High.-Sidereal Messen- ger.