The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1899-12-15
HEAT FROM THE SUN.
HOW LITTLE OF 1T WE GET is ALMOST
BEYOND BELIEF.

The sun is for the most part simply
wasting his heat-finging away the
golden rays that are the life Of the
world with a recklessness beside which
all human waste is mere parsimony
It is almost beyond belief. Scarcely
one sunbeam in 2,OOO,OO0,0O0 alights
upon the earth, and allowing for the
whole solar system not more than one
in 100000 ever hits anything, so fa1
as we can ascertain.
Sir Robert Balls comment on this
waste Of the suns heat is: Suppose a
man with an income Of $1,OOO,OOO a
year. He spends for useful purposes
1 cent and throws the rest away. His
wastefulness is no greater than that
which this old prOdigal the sun has
practiced for untold ages.
The untold amount of heat which
thus leaks away through the cracks in
the sky cannot be expressed by figures.
It is only by considering what it might
do that we can get any conception of
it. This is probably the most striking
illustration, and is given by an eminent
astronomer:
Suppose a solid shaft of ice two miles
square to be extended like bridge
across the gulf which separates the
earth from the sun. If a track were
laid on it's surface an express train
running at full speed would require
more than $50 years to traverse it, Yet,
IL Of fT1rY
ed upon it for a single second it would
be melted, and in a few seconds more
all, even to the railroad iron, would
drift away as vapor.
But what is the source of this heat
that flows into space as the gulf
stream pours into the Atlantic, warm
ing the earth and other planets like lit
tie islands in it's course? What keeps
up the supply?
If the sun were merely a white hot
ball, gradually cooling, our grandchil-
dren would indeed get a chill; or,
rather, neither they nor we would ever
have seen the sun. The final frost
would have fallen long ago.
Nor can the heat be maintained by
fire. as we understand the word-such
fire as warns and now and then
consumes our houses. If it were a
globe of flaming coal it could have last
ed but a few thousand years; it would
have been burned to ashes long before
we were born. All the coal on the
earth would hardly keep the sun going
for One-tenth Of a second.
A falling meteor gives out great heat,
just as bullet is heated when it
strikes the target. Some have cOnjec-
tured that q vast stream of these little
hailstones raining upon the sun supplies
it's fuel But if the whole mass of the
moon were put into a stone crusher,
broken up and thrown against the sun,
it would barely furnish heat for a sim
gle year And no such weight could
possibly approach the sun without our
knowledge.
Yet. in it's own chosen way, the sun
really has it's fires. With proper in
struments we may see the red flames
spouting from it's edge. sometimes to
height of 100000 miles-higher than
the moon floats above the earth. To
some of them our world would be no
more than water drop falling from a
fountain.
To gain any idea of the almost mex
haustible reservoir from which the sun
draws it's heat we must first picture it's
actual condition. Matter there is in a
state unlike anything ever seen upon
earth. 1t is neither solid nor liquid
nor in any familiar sense gaseous. The
sun is a boiling, seething. flaming mix
ture of the gases or vapOrS of all the
elements condensed by the tremendous
squeeze of solar gravity until it is
thicker than pitch, and so hot that it's
vapOriZed iron might be used for steam
power if there were any boiler fit to
hold it. 1t has no definite surface, but
shades away from this incandescent
paste, through leaping flames of blood
red hydrogen to the faint streamers of
the corona. as filmy as comets tail.
This writing mass. heavier on the
average than water and yet as I'M
stable as air. does not even rotate like
other orbs, but swirls around it's axis.
In the terrific tension of these gases
is stored up the energy of the sun. AS
this escapes in gushes of heat they do
not cool, but slowly contract. 1t is
quite possible that they even grow hot
ter as they thus settle downward and
compress themselves into a denser
fluid.
A total shrinkage of 22O feet year
will account for the whole expenditure,
and so small change in the size of the
disk could not be detected until it had
been watched for thousands of years.
This will go on until the substance of
the sun ceases to be essentially case
Gus. Then will come the beginning of
the end for from that time forth the
actual temperature of the sun will de-
cline.
This, however. will be in some far
distant day, for careful scientists as
sure us that our race will enjoy I'M
diminished sunshine for at least 5000
years, and perhaps for twice 5000.
Then. while the sun slowly reddens
and darkens, our earth will die. After
that comes tho piUht of a0oc -Cba rIoS