The times., 1898-10-08
THE SMALL PLAN ETS.
Their Uses I'm Astronomy and Re
markabIe Discovery.
(From the London Times.)

(From the London Times.)
OF all the different departments of as
Economical work minor planet" dis
covery has seemed by far the least in
teresting and profitable There seemed no
end to their numbers-more than $50 have
been detected within the last ten years
they are all too small for any markings
10 be observed on their surfaces, or to af-
ford fields for delightful speculations as
to their climates and Inhabitants; they
are just wandering boulders, as numer-
Gus as the pebbles on the seashore, and
with for the most part scarcely more
individuality TO repay the astronomer for
the toll of keeping a watch on their mo-
tions and of computing their orbits So
that it was with a decided feeling of sat
isfaction that most astronomers saw the
first half of the present year so by with
out single fresh discovery.
The past two months, however. have
each brought a new capture; the first,
discovered by NJ. Chariois, OF the Nice
Observatory, on July 16, having no special
claims 10 attention. But the second, dis
covered by Herr Witt, of the Urania OBJ
servatory, Berlin, on August Il, seems to
have so remarkable an orbit that as
tronomers will think the labor spent on
the discovery and observation of the
other 430 or so of these little bodies well
bestowed since IL has led to the discovery
OF this one.
The chief interest of "minor planet as
tronomy has lain in the suitability Of
some of them for use in the determina-
ton of the fundamental unit of astrono-
my the distance of the earth from the
sun. Some of them come sufficiently near
the earth every now and then for their
distancG 10 be determined with consider
able precision. And as the relative dis
tanceS of the various planets can easily
be ascertained, TO know the distance ac-
curately of one is to know the distance Of
all
But the minor planets as a body lie
between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars,
and only one or two ever come nearer TO
the sun than the mean distance of Mars,
The new planet, unlike all its brethren, II
the first attempts at the calculation of its
orbit are to be received, has it's mean dis
tance from the sun within that of Mars,
and, travelling in a very eccentric orbit,
will approach the earth when ii is at it's
nearest approach TO both earth and sun
at the same time, within IL 900 600 miles.
1t will be at such times our nearest
neighbor in space after the moon herself,
but such close oppositions viii only oc-
cur about once in thirty years. The time
of revolution of the new planet is GAS
days.
Like the other pocket planets" it is
of very small size say twenty or twenty
five miles in diameter, but on the occa-
sion Of a very close opposition 1t will
shine as a sixth magnitude star and
therefore be visible to the naked eye.
Even at its most distant oppositious it
will be of the eleventh magnitude, five or
six times as bright, that is as most of the
more recently discovered minor planets.
This fact makes ii most remarkable that
- hoe n
creates the hope that other bodies nearer
than Mars may be detected. At any rate,
1t will revive the interest in the search
for small celestial wanderers, of which it
is at present by far the most useful and
interesting.