The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-23

SPEAKING OF THE COMET.
Prof. Pickering Talks About the Pos
sibiIity of Its Hitting the Earth.
From the Philadelphia Press.

From the Philadelphia Press.
Cambridge, Feb. 20.-In regard to Per-
rine's comet, which is due to strike the
earth on or about March IA, Prof. Pick
ering of the Harvard observatory tonight
said that such an event is certainly posi-
BILE.
Comets" said he, "have no special re-
lation to the earth, and if the earth hap
pened to be in the path of one it would,
of course, be struck"
And what would happen then?"
THAT 1 can't tell you; in fact, no one
record of any such experience. The only
man who dares to say much on this sub
ject is Prof. c. A. Young of Princeton,
and I'll give YOU his opinion on the sub
ject because he has given that line more
attention than l have" Prof. Young S
opinion is that "a comet is swarm of solid
particles of unknown size and widely sep
arated (say pin heads several hundred feet
apart, each particle carrying with it an
envelope of gas, largely hydro-carbon, in
which gas light is produced, either by
electric discharges between the particles
or by some other Hght-evolving action
due to the suns influence This hypothe-
sis derives its chief plausibility from the
modern discovery of the close relationship
between meteors and comets
Now" says Prof. Young, comets may
hurt us in two ways-either by actually
striking the earth or by falling into the
sun and thus producing such an increase
of solar heat as to burn us up"
"As regards the possibility of coll
lision with a comet, it is to be admitted
that such an event is possible In fact,
if the earth lasts long enough it is prac-
ticalIy sure to happen, for there are
several comets orbits which pass nearer
to the earth's orbit than the semi-diame-
ter OF the comets head, and at some
time the earth and comet will certainly
come together. Such encounters will,
however, be very rare. If we accept the
estimate of Babinet they win occur once
in 100000 years in the long run.
AS to the consequences of such col
lisiOn it is impossible to speak with con-
fidence for want of sure knowledge of
the state of aggregation of the matter
composing a comet. If we accept the
modern theory (a.bove given, and if this
theory is true, everything depends on
the size of the separate solid particles
which form the main portion of the
comets mass. If they weigh tons, the
bombardment experienced by the earth
serious matter; If, as seems more likely
they are for the most part smaller than
pinheads, the result would be simply a
grand meteoric shower"
Now said Prof. Pickering, although
you see the possibility of that comets
striking the earth is real, still the prob
ability is not SO great. So far as we
know the probability is not much greater
than that of some other comets striking
us At the Harvard observatory here we
have not yet had the three good observa-
tiOns which are required before we can
make any computations. This is for the
reason that so many other observatories
are watching comets that we devote our
time to things which they cannot do so
well we can.
''At the observatory it is figured from
the fact that the comet is expected to
change its course on March that the earth
will escape. If an error of a mlitonth
part Of unit has been made we may be
struck 5Hf