Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-06-30
The EARTH is A PYGMY.
Almost Incredible Dimensions of the Sun
As Compared with This Sphere.

Almost Incredible Dimensions of the Sun
As Compared With This Sphere.
A dime held alarms length from
the eye will much more than cover
the entire disk of the sun. If it were
placed at the exact point of coinci-
dence and its diameter and distance
from the eye accurately measured,
it might be used as a means of de-
termining the suns diameter, his
distance being known, The fore
most philosophers of long ago would
have been appalled, at the true state
ment of both the SUMS distance and
its size.
The suns diameter is about $685.
900 miles. Perhaps a faint coneep-
ton of the enormous bulk indicated
by these figures may be had from
the reflection that the umbra of
single huge sun spot, observed in
January, 1897, was extensive enough
to entertain 16 earths grouped in
solid square. 1t is bewildering to be
assured that it would take /, 300, 900
earths to equal the sun in volume.
If the interior of that truly gigantic
globe were hollow, and the earth
were placed at its center with the
moon revolving about it at its usual
mean distance of nearly 100000
miles, there would still exist vacu-
ity between the moon and the in
closing shell of the sun of nearly
200, 900 miles. This is perhaps the
most graphic and impressive illus
tration possible of the sun s colossal
bulk. We must note, however, that
the density of the sun is only about
one-quarter that of the earth, so
that it would weigh" only as much
as $50, 900 earths. In very round"
numbers the SUMS weight may be
stated at two octillions of tons,
which, if expressed in figures, would
require almost as many ciphers as
newspaper line can accommodate.
A very comprehensive illustration
of the pygmean dimensions of the
earth as compared with the sun is
to represent the latter by globe 2
feet in diameter and the earth by a
dainty pea. And yet the little pea
weighs more than six quintillion
tons. AS to the solar surface, it is
some II, 900 times that of our planet.
Yet the sun, when compared with
its true peers, the stars, is not only
of extraordinary size, but in all
probability is only to be ranked
among the medium self luminous
bodies which sparkle in "heaven's
ebon vault. y And because of it's
spottedness it has place (although
a humble one) among the variable"
stars.
The shining SHE'LL" as Miss
Clerke terms it, seen through a
piece Of well smoked glass, is termed
the philosophers" We thus per-
ceive its actual diameter, although
it seems much smaller than our con-
ception Of it, because the fierce glare
has been negatived by the shade
glass. If we concede that the sun is
gaseous, the photosphere may be re-
garded as sort of skin or crust of
incandescent clouds, through which
are constantly breaking the geyser-
like uprushes of metallic vapors,
which expend their energies as far
above the sun sometimes as the
moon is distant from the earth. En-
vironing the photosphere, as the at
mosphere surrounds the earth, but
vastly deeper, is the 'chromo-
sphere. Seen in the spectroscope
it resembles delicate but brilliant
rim about the solar globe, and the
same instrument reveals the prom
inences, whose varied forms are so
fascinating. Philadelphia Ledger.