Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1896-03-05


has made 1.-The least mistake
in his calculations, the Perrine comet
which is travelling toward the earth
at the rate OF 100000 miles a day
will give old Mother Earth a good
bump on March "a. This, at least
is the calculations made by Professor
Pickering, the eminent astronomer
of Harvard college.
Professor Lenschner has Just CON-
pleted his calculations OF the orbit
covered by Astronomer Perrine
of the Lick University a few
days ago. His calculations convince
him that the comet will take n new
course March |. and sheer away from
! tine earth. II. however. theprOfessOr
has made "a mistake of a milliOnth
part of ~ unit in his figures. the
comet may strike us.
Professor Pickering al the Harvard
! observatory was seen this evening
by Il reporter. and asked ii il were
possible for thc comet and the earth
To meet in collision. His reply was
! that such II thing WIS certainly pos
siblc. comets" Inc said, have no
special relation to the earth. and il
the earth happened to he i'm the path
! of one. il would, of course. he struck.
| am not prepared to say just what
would happen. No one knows.
such experience. The only man who
dares to say much on this subject
is Professor G.. \. Young of Princeton.
and I'll give YOU his opinion on the
subject because he has given that
| line more attention than | have.
Professor Young's opinion is that
a comet is nothing but n sand bank.
] that it is Il swarm of solid particles
of unknown size separately-say.
! like pin heads several hundred feet
apart. Each particle carrying with
! il an envelope OF gas, largely hydro
carbon, i'm which gas light is pro-
| duced, either by electrical discharges
between the particles or some other
light evolving action due tn the sun $
influence. The hypothesis derives its
chief plausibility from the modern
discovery of the close relationship
between the mcteors and comets.
Professor Young says that comets
may hurt us in two ways. either by
actually striking the earth or by
falling into the sun and thus produc-
ing such an increase OF solar heat as
to burn us up"
In regard to the possibility of a
collision with comet, Professor
Pickering said that 1t was to be ad.
mitted that such an event was pos
sible. In fact" he continued, ''ii
the earth lasts long enough such
II thing is practically sure to
happen, for there are several comets
orbits which pass nearer to. the
earth's orbit than the semi-diametei
of the comets head, and, some time
the earth and comet will certainly
come together. Such encounters
will. however. be rare. If we accept
the estimate of Babinet, they will ar
rive once in 15,000.OOO years in the
long run"
As tn the real consequence of suct
collision, Professor Pickering said
il was impossible to estimate fol
want OF sure knowledge of the stats
of aggregation of the matter com
posing comet. III we accent tn,
modern theory" he said, land if this
theory be true, everything depends
ON the size of the separate solid par
iicle which form the main portion o
the comets mass. II il weighed ;
ton. the bombardment would be yer,
serious but ii. ;ts seems more likely
the particles are smaller than pin
heads. the result would he simply !,
grand mcteoric shower
Now continued the professor
!, although the possibility of tha'
comets striking the earth is real
: still the probability is not mucl
greater than that of some other com
= cts striking. us. At the Harvard oh
srrvatory here we have not had tn
three good observations which ar
required before we can make an,
computations. This is for the rea
son that so many other observa
tories are watching comets, that w
devote our time TO things which the,
cannot do SO well as we can, q
course. il the time comes when w
are i'm position which our Observa
tions will count for much. we sha
: devote all our energies to Them