The San Francisco call., 1897-12-26

-
Ono telescope is required to show
them is a thing of comparatively
rare occurrence, particularly just
at this time. when the mysterious
cycle known as the 'sun-spot period" is
nearing the minimum phase, and when,
consequently, the surface of the solar
orb shows few evidences of violent dis
turbance Suddenly, in the midst of
this Quiescence. a tremendous upheaval
has taken place. and the face of the
sun shows the effects by marks that are
plainly visible to the naked eye ninety
three million miles away.
The present group of sun-spots has
a maximum diameter of about 100, 900
miIes-an area large enough to swallow
up a hundred planets like our earth.
It is no small thing to look upon the
work of an explosion that would not
merely have split a mountain, not only
have swallowed the Alps, not simply
have licked up the Pacific Ocean in a
Eulp of steam, not have stopped with
ishattering Europe, Asia, Africa, Amer
Dca into indistinguishable ruin, but
= which had power enough to turn the
whole world to chaos! Anybody who
looked at the largest black center in
that group of sun spots saw how big
the earth would appear at the distance
of the sun. Into that fearful chasm our
globe could have been dropped without
touching its blazing walls. Out of it
could have come, so far as the ques-
ton of size is concerned, another earth
as large as this, bounding into sudden
existence like Minerva born from the
forehead of Jove.
And this leads me to question that
has been addressed to me for a reply.
Was a new world actually elected from
the sun when that great spot was
formed, and is that newborn planet
now careering in space and rushing
earthward, perhaps, bearing direful
fate upon its spinning front. The idea
that such a thing has occurred, or
p could occur, is no doubt based upon a
theory put forth last summer by Pro-
20 :fessor Corrigan to the effect that the
. phenomena of sun spots indicated that
the sun was about to give birth to a
p: *new planet, and that the disturbances
accompanying such planetary birth
would probably have q disastrous eff
feet upon the earth. That theory has
since been enormously ascribed to me.
As a matter Of fact 1 do not believe in
it at all. I think that the sun long ago
planet-bearing period of its existence
and that even when it was capable OF
giving birth to planets it did not do Sc
by explosion or election.
There is nOthin~ that we know about
sun spots which could lead us to think
that even the largest Of them-and
A those now visible belong to the first
III ma agRitude-would be able to cast forth
y a Sufficient quantity Of matter to form
: a planet in the sense which is ordinar-
lily attached to that word. The sudden
separation from the sun (supposing
such a thing possible) of a body as
massive of the earth would probably
. cOnvulse the whole globe of the sun
and might we'll be accompanied by
thermal and electrical disturbances
that would traverse the ether with
lightning speed and produce more or
less serious consequences on our plan
ct. Certainly no such separation or
election occurred when the sun spots
now visible were formed.
On the other hand it is true that fhe
formation of great sun spots is fire.
quently, perhaps always, accompanied
by explosive action of the most violent
character, and masses of the material
of which the sun is composed are
hurled away from it with velocities
sometimes sufficient to free such
masses from the suns immediate con-
troll somewhat as a discharged pro-
jectile is freed from the cannon out OF
whose mouth it has issued. And it is
not improbable that these masses are
sometimes as large as, or even larger
than, the earth. But the material of
which they consist, instead of being
solid, like rock or metal, is gaseous 1t
comprises, no doubt, such things as
iron and other metals, but they are so
heated, and consequently expanded,
that they float like clouds around the
sun. We must remember that in the
sun no solid that we know could re-
main in the solid state. There every
thing is in the form of blazing vapors.
A volcano liquefies rock, but the sun
Yaporizes it.
=. Consequently, while 1t is possible that
a mass of matter has been elected from
: the sun within the past week which
= iequalled the earth in size, yet since
that mass must have been in a gaseous
or vaporous condition it would not
. weigh a milIionth part of the weight of
1.-The earth, and, as it cooled, it would
;rapidly contract until, instead of q
thing as big as world, it would be-
come simply meteor. That a meteor.
or a giants handful of meteors. NAV
just have been shot from the sun. can
be granted without doing violence to
scientific probability. And it is also
within the range of possibility that that
meteor, or some of those meteors, NAV
reach the earth.
GARRETT P. SERVISS.