Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-07-05
New York Herald.

that the king OF Gay Is now absorb
inc more of the Astronomers attention
than usually on account of very large
soot which has broken out on his surface
during the past week For about three
Years sun spots have been a good deal of
aTarity, large ones especially. That is,
fine period Of minimum spots, as it is
called. has been passing.
The present outbreak in the solar sur
face NAV be regarded as the beginning
ofa new phase in the sun spot period,
and for the next seven OF. eight years
there viii probably be very few days
when no spots can be seen on the sun.
The number will increase, not gradually,
Inf Tv Jerks or spurts, until about 1894,
I'm which year sun spots can likely be
seen every day.
with the telescope I saw several groups
of small spots alongside tf& big spot now
visible. but these are Of no special i'm
nartauce. The sun is 50 600 900 miles
away. so that any object on its surface
7,.gsf have the dimension of % 600 miles
IN order to be seen at all with the naked
owe even as the meTest speck. The big
rest spots ever known were about twice
this size.
II we divide the sun IS distance by 100
we get very nearly his diameter, which is
500 GOO miles; and if this diameter is
AGAIN divided by 100 the result is, q little
more than the diameter of the earth,
which is 1920 miles. OF course, this Is
ONLY chance relation, but it may help
70 remember relative sizes and distances.
The old time illustration of Herschel is
Derbaus better, in which the sun Is rep
Faa Il for
and the eartn by pea 300 feet from It.
The huge solar globe is composed of
glowing iucandescent gases. existing
under a pressure so high that their con-
sistcncv is probably like that of paste or
honey. Its temperature is impossible to
measure, but is certainly not less than
ten thousand degrees of the ordinary
thermometric scale. Eruptions through
the cooling shell are concerned in the
origin Of the spots.
WHAT THE SPOT MEASURES.
1t is somewhat difficult to realize the
actual dimensions Of such an object as
the great spot now Visible at the incOn-
ceivabIe distance at which the sun is re-
moved from the earth. ! can just. see it
without the telescope; but by using this
instrument and magnifying the image of
the spot its diameter can readily be
measured It is slightly oval in form,
ana the dark central nucleus is sur
rounded by the shadowy portion called
the penumbra. Both have increased
greatly in size during the past week.
Last Friday l calculated the dimensions
Of the spot from the records of the as
trouomer who had just measured it with
the micrometer of his telescope, and l
found that the diameter of the shadOwy
portion of the spot was nearly thirty
( thousand miles. For the size of the
Mack part Of the spot, or umbTa, his
measures gave me u 900 miles. Most
astronomers believe these spots are holes
i'm the outer layers or envelopes of the
sun. ana they accept them as such, not
only for theOrical reasons, but because
spots have often been seen at the very
edge of the disk, and they appear there
as uotches in the disk, somewhat like the
spaces between the teeth of a buzz saw,
or the hicks IN a hotel plate.
II they really are holes, what an enOr-
nous cavity this spot must be! One lit
tie planet is a globe nearly eight thou
sand miles through, but three or four Of
them could be squeezed together into Il
single sphere and the whole dropped into
tins vawning cavern without making so
much rs a ripple in its margin! II the
old theory of Sir John HeTschel has any
truth in it, that the spots are due to me-
teorc matter plungiug into the solar mass,
the sun must recently have come into
collision with a vast shoal of meteors TO
cause such q disturbance of its surface.
AMERICAN AND OTHER AUTHORITIES.
Astronomers now do not accept this
theory as q whole, although they admit
the existence of meteorie matter in i'm
meuse quantities all through the inter
planetary spaces Faye, Great French
physicist, holds TO the idea that the spots
are species OF solar cyclone, with dis
tluct whirlpool. motion Many spots
show this, but all should if this theory
were true
The late Father Secchi of Rome pro-
posed theory which is more likely cor
rect than any other, and his view was
that these phenomena are due to erup-
uons from the under portions of the So
lar surface, and that they take place
around the spot rather than Immediately
IN 10. The spot itself is then accounted
Tor 10y the settling down upon the photo
sphere of the materials of the eruption,
which have been cooled by motion
through the contact with the outlying
regions OF the sun
on this subject, Professor Young, says in
ms % New Astronomy, - recently pub
Eshcd: The spots are unquestionably
oaTJ iaS or depressions IN the philosophers,
filed with gasses and vapors which are
COOLER than the surrounding portions,
and therefore absorb a considerable pro-
portion of light. On the whole
IT is impossible to say that the problem of
the origin of sun spots is yet satisfactorily
solved. There is no question that sun
spots are closely associated with erup-
TONS from beneath; but which is cause
and which is effect, or whether both are
one To some external action, remains IN
determined. -
spots are never seen north or south of
about 10 deg. of solar latitude, and they
are the Understand most frequent in lat
ltudes of about 20 deg. to % deg. on
both sides Of the solar equator. They
grow from very small points. Some !
times they last only for few days, and |
occasionally for more than year. Those |
lasting long time have enabled the as
tronomer TO ascertain that the sun turns |
round on its axis about twenty five times |
as slowly as the earth does.
sun spots were most abundant IN 1927, |
1888, lSi9, 1860, 1871 and 1888, and very |