Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-11-01
CELESTIAL PHENOMENA.

No attempt is made in these articles to
distinguish that which is original with the
writer from that which Is drawn from
other sources.
Five of the planets visible to the naked
eye may be seen this month.
In the evening, almost as soon as the sun
sets, three planets come out very bright.
Beginning with Venus, which at the first
of the month is nearing the horizon, they
form a broken line from Venus to Mars,
which is now in the east side OF the Milky
Way 1t is of interest to note how fast
Venus is gaining on Jupiter, and how fast
Mars is leaving him.
Saturn and Mercury may be seen in the
morning. Saturn rising a little before
midnight on the 18th, and Mercury about
two hours before the sun on the 25th.
Mercury makes his nearest approach to
the sun on the 9th, and Venus reaches her
greatest distance from the sun on the
18th
On the 2nd there is the greatest possible
difference between the time marked
by the sun and that marked
by the chronometer the true sun being on
that day ION 21s in advance or west of
that imaginary sun by which our clocks
are regulated.
Thus far this year five CONNECTS have
been reported. The first has now disap-
peared from the vision Of earth jewellers
1t passed out into space, through the con-
stellation cassiopeia-
The second and fourth are known as
Eucke's and Faye's comets, and return
every three and one-third and seven and
one-half years respectively. The third was
discovered in the Great bear and moves
southeast therefrom.
The fifth was discovered by Prof Bar
nard, OF the Sick Observatory, and indie
dendently by Prof. Brooks, of Geneva, y.
Y. Prof Barnards telegram was the first
to reach the Warmers Observatory, and
secured for him the Warner comet prize
of 500.
ABOUT THE sun.
How is the sun rises heat maintained?
Whence the fuel that keeps up such an
enormous fire? Do the meteors, such as
we see gliding through our atmosphere,
fall in sufficient quantity into the sun to
keep its fires burning? Not probable. Do
the light and heat. instead of moving in
straight lines as we have been taught,
move on the arcs of immense curves which
finally return to the surface of the sun,
bring thither all the heat agains Unscien-
tifc.
The settling of the suns substance to-
ward its own center is sufficient cause
for all the heat given out by the sun It
can be experimentally demonstrated that
a body in a gaseous condition may radiate
its heat into space, and at the same time
increase its temperature without any new
supply of heat being put into it. The
shrinking of its substance generates heat.
If the sun is in a gaseous condition, as
different facts seem to indicate, its undl-
minishing supply of heat can be maintain
ed By the suns shrinkage, by the shorten
ing of its diameter 800 feet in year. 1t
would require ten thousand years for the
sun at this rate TO diminish by quantity
such as could be observed in the most pow
erful TELESCOPE; yet this diminution is suf-
ficient, with the suns present size, to de-
velop the heat given out.
We may look forward to time when our
sun will cease to shine. We may look
backward to its beginning. Calculation
will show that at its present rate of giving
out heat it could not have been shin
ing more than eighteen million years,
and that it can not continue TO give out
heat sufficient to support life on the earth
more than five million years longer. A
few million years more and its light may 90
out forever and the great furnace by
which the human race has been warmed
for so many ages may become black,
dead ball, rolling on through space, a
corpse in an infinite, eternal tomb.