The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-01

Itogethea boths presenting with Venus 2 most sstrikine Appearance on account of
 their proximity Venus being on the Isl of the month and a few days following | about F degrees distant from Jupiter and Saturn. Even the full moon cannot materially quell the indulgence of these | two splendid planets-Venus and Jupiter -and in a clear and moonless night their | aspect Is simply grand. These three plan. | cts will be most conspicuous objects in | the nocturnal skies until about 6:3t o'clock in December evenings. which cannot fail to engage at once the admir- | ing attention of anyone that has any | taste for the beauty. of the starry heav- ens Of the four planets Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars the last will set first, | little aftef 6 o'clock, then Saturn. Jupi- ter and Venus. Jupiter and Saturn only a few minutes from each other As Mars
 will set early, it is not ina very favorable position for observation in the evening. though one may catch a glimpse of this planet before it disappears below the hor- izon. Jupiter and Venus. while they are near each other during the first portion of the month, produce the impression on the mind of the beholder as if they attempted to vie with each other in bril- liancy, and. in fact, it requires some- what close comparison to decide that Ve-
 
 the two. Compared with them Saturn loses somewhat of that conspicuousness which this planet presents in a more iso- lated position. The proximity of the three planets enables the gaZer to form a more accurate estimate of their respective brightness. In comparison with Jupiter and Saturn the. planet Venus moves so swiftly in it's orbit around the sun that any conjunction of the three planets can be but of brief duration.
 Spe aking about conjunctions of planets, | we are reminded of what the German poet Goethe wrote in his Conversations with His Friend Eckerman'' in the summer of 1923 at Weimar: II enjoy here," says Goethe both good day and good nights. Often before dawn I am already awake, and lie down by the open window to enjoy the splendor of the three planets which are at present to be seen together. and to refresh myself with the increasing brilliancy of the morning red" Goethe unfoI tunately does not mention the names of the three planets, and 1t is not an uninteresting question what plan cts are referred to. Of course an almanac of the year 1923 which gives the planetary position of that year would enable us to answer the question readily, but 1t would not be easy to get an almanac of SO re- mote a date Knowing the time of the conjunctions of the planets with the sun in the year 1900 and their synodic periods, it can be found by a very simple and in- genious arithmeticaI process that the three planets in question are Mercury. Venus and Saturn. On one or two occa- sions we have mentioned that every spe- cies of organic life and every conceivable kind of energy manifested on our globe can be traced back to the center of our glorious solar system--ths sun.
 And just as the sun holds every planet in it's appointed orbit so does he create all the conditions necessary for the eX- istence of man, beast and plant. Noth- ing is more positively true than the de- pendency of every kind of energy here on earth upon the sun. The light and heat. our stoves and our furnaces our candle. lamp. gas and electric lights
 furnish can ultimately be traced back to sunbeams As an example take the electric light. which as ordinarily pro-
 duced is ultimately due to sunbeams. Nc | doubt 1t Is immediately derived from q
 pair of carbon points but the current
 necessary for the purpose is obtained from a dynamo, which must be driven | by some source of power usually steam | engine It follows that the steam engine | is driven by steam and the steam Is made from water and the water is heat | ed by coal; thus it is coal which ac' l tually generates the electric light. The | boiler. the water, the steam engine the | dynamo, the wires and the carbon points | are merefw appliances by which some thing which has been stored in the coa | is applied to the particular purpose of generating light. But the coal has de- | rived it's potency from the sunbeams which shone on the anicent coal forests
 at the time of the formation of the coa | measuresA Our electric lights tonight
 may be- regarded as a resuscitatlon on a | feeble scale of sunbeams emitted from | the orb of day millions of years ago. The possibility of the continued existence of | the human race depends fundamentally upon the question of heat. If, therefore | heat, or what is equivalent to heat, does not last, then the stern fact obtrudes It. self upon our minds that man cannot last longer, either. As all terrestrial heat comes from the sun directly or indirectly
 it Is question of the highest importance and intensest interest how long the sun will be able to supply us with an amount of heat sufficient for the maintenance of life here on earth. Accepting the latest and most trustworthy theory, that the heat necessary to maintain the sum s radiation is principally supplied by the slow contraction of it's bulk. the possi- bility present sitself to the mathema- tician of calculationgs at least roughly, the future duration of the sun.
 One of our most distinguished Ameri- can astronomers, Professor Simon New comb, concludes that it Is not likely that the sun can continue to give sufficient heat to support such life on the earth as we are acquainted with for more than ten millions of years from the present time. ..-
 The reader remembers that last Febru- ary a new star appeared in the constella- tion Perseus.. whose light increased until it became a star of almost the first magnitude. but which gradually faded away. until now 1t is only of the six teenth magnitude. Professor Ritchey of the Yerkes Observatory. by means of carefully photographing' this Nova Persei. the latest of all the Novae thinks he has discovered facts that tend to prove the famous "Nebular Hypothesis'' of crea- ton, announced for the first time by the great Laplace. Before We enter into de- tails we deem it better to await further development and corroboration. and for this reason we reserve a discussion or the subject for a future article.
 Extending the line that connects Beta and Gamma Andromedae by rather more than it's own length. we notice a star somewhat brighter than the standard second-magnitude star. This is Alpha, the principal star in the constellation Perseus. It Is also called Algenib. name that must not be- confounded with Gamma Pegasi. that bears the same proper name. Bending the line which joins Beta and Gamma Andromedae little toward the east we come to Beta Persei or Algol. one of the most re-