The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-06

tions, Virgin, Scorpion and Aquarius have
 now sunk in the west 10 be seen no more
 until next year, while to take their place
 the far more brilliant cancellations, Tau
 rus, Orion and Gemini have appeared
 in the east. The little group of the Pleiades which last month was low
 down in the east has now risen more
 than half way to the zenith, while Orion.
 the most beautiful constellation of the
 entire heavens, is rising just below In
 two months more Orion will be due south
 in the early evening" with the two Dogs.
 the Twins and the Grab little to east
 Of south and Taurus to the west. This
 will be the most brilliant sky of the year,
 the mid winter sky.
 The Planet Saturn.
 If the obs rver will face south, he vii,
 have little difficulty in tracing out from
 the map the constellation Capricornus,
 which is now rather low down in the
 southwest. The star is a wide, double
 and a fine object in an opera glass. The
 two stars of this pair were not always separately visible, for they are moving slowly further and further apart The star B is a.so a beautiful double, when | examined with an opera glass; the faint | CT star beins of a light blue color. In | the eastern end of the constellation at i M, there viii be seen faint point of light, which, if examined with a tele scope, will be found to be an immense aggregation of very faint stars, appar ently crowded closely together.
 But the most interesting object in the 1 pl1nfiDp this month ig ba turn, which appears as a bright star in | the position marked s. The observer should not fail to examine this object | with a sm4l telescope, for soon it will | follow the summer constellations and be lost to view until next year.
 | His first sight of this great world will be very striking. He will see a round | ball surrounded by two rings, as shown l in Fig. 1, near which the largest moon | of Saturn shines out as a faint star-like object. If he has access to a very large | telescope, he will see that instead of two | rings there are really three, the inner be- l ing very faint; seven moons beside the | large one will also be detected some of | which are at great distances from the l planet.
 The little hall is 79OOO miles through 1 rearly nine times as thick as the earth l the distance across .he rings Is 16S GOO
  | This great world is very different from cur own; In fact 1t Is almost certainly l very hot and probably in a gaseous or 1 Vaporized condition. This is believed to l be so, partly because the material of | which Saturn is composed is very light; | a cubic foot of Saturn would only weigh one-eighth as much as a cubic foot of the earth. The slight markings on the planet, too. are continually changing. A frr, h,1 d with numerous white areas, at present there is a dark brand across it on the lower side and numerous other fainter bands and markings, but these change their position and shape from day to day, and even from hour to hour. So we conclude that this world is an immense hot globe, which undoubtedly is slowly cooling and shrinking together just as the earth has done. Whether ultimately 1t will become the abode of life. we can only conjecture, but some time in the remote future it will estainly be solid and for ages it's temperature and condition will remain not unlike those of our earth.
 The Ring System.
 The rings of Saturn are made up of an immense number of meteoric parti cles, each Jre of which revolves around and arouni the planet just as the moon revolves around the earth. Each sepa- rate particle is far too small to be seen with the telescope, but there are so many of them tbat when they are reviewed from the earth they appear as a contin- uous ring At present we see the rings obliquely, as shown in figure ?, but some times the earth is in such position that they are seen edgewise, as in figure 8. This happens every fifteen years. It is |, ha thipLnaSS nf tho rin0G is very small indeed scarcely more than 100 miles. Tney are, in fact, so thin that Dr. Barnard, of Chicago, has seen one of the moons of Saturn when 1t was be- hind the rings and shining directly through them This would of course. have been Impossible had the rings been a solid mass.
 The Satellites.
 Titan. the largest moon of Saturn, can be seen even in a small telescope. It Is about 1000 miles in diameter, and passes completely around the planet in sixteen days. Besi lie this moon, there are seven others the inner one of which goes around the planet in less than one day. while the outer requires seventy-nine days to make the circuit.
 In 1899 the surprising announcement was made from the Harvard Observa- tory that a new satellite to Saturn had teen discovered on a delicate photograph of the planet. As later photographs showed no trace of this object, and as most careful search failed to reveal 1t. 1t was supposed that probably 1t had no existence Now. however, it has been many times photographed again and even measured v-sually with the great Yerkes telescope at Chicago.
 The new nody Is of course excessively great and more observations must be made of 1t before its motion can be com puted very exactly. It is already known, however, that this ninth moon occupies about year and a half in passing around the planet and that it Is more than eight millions of miles away from 1t.
 The Planet Jupiter.
 This planet is by far the brightest ob- ject in the sky during the present month. It will be noticed at once. a little east of south in the constellation Pisces, In the position marked J on the map. If examined with a small telescope, it's ap-