Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1905-05-05
is OUR SUN PARALYZED7

The Past Two AbnormaIIy Cool Summers
Have Set Astronomers to Thinking.
tGarrett =. Serviss, in Golfers Weekly
Is the great hearth Of the solar system
growing cold? People in light clothing
who have shivered through the chilly days
of the last two summers may well begin
to suspect that II is, and now they have
the misgivings of an astronomer to
strengthen their own. Professor S. p.
Langley, writing in the Astrophysical
Journal raises the startling question
whether there has not been, Of late,
falling of in the suns heat.
However dismaying the supposition may
be, there is nothing inherently improbable
about it. We know that the sun is only
star and that very common character
istic OF stars is variability. Far off in the
depths Of space we see stars winking and
blinking, some regularly and some errati-
cally and since their chemical nature re-
sembles that of our star we may con-
clude that the sun also carries the seeds
OF this disorder even II it has rot yet
developed very far in his constitution.
Let US see on what special grounds the
suggestion that there has lately occurred
a change in the solar radiation rests. Pro-
fessor Langley has collated statistics
gathered from scientific weather observers
scattered over the whole northern hemi
sphere, and has found in them evidence
that about the end OF April 1908, the
amount of heat that the earth received
from the sun had fallen off as much as
ten per cent. The result was a lowering
of the summer temperature, felt stimuli
taneously in America, in Europe. in the
northern part Of Africa, and in Asia. The
average drop was about three and six
! tenths degrees Fahrenheit below the nor
NAL temperature.
What happened in the southern hemi-
! sphere We do not know, because the requi-
| site statistics are not at hand.
Professor Langley shows the defect of
solar radiation did not continue, because,
beginning late in the year 1903, there was
| a general rise of temperature in the
northern hemisphere toward the normal
level. permanent falling OFF of ten per
| cent in the heat of the sun, he calculates,
would lower the average temperature OF
| This would certainly be a very serious
matter. Even as IL was. a great deal of
| discomfort was experienced whether the
cause lay in the failure of the sun to
| supply the customary amount of heat, or,
as some think, in an extra degree of opa-
city of the earths atmosphere, arising
possibly from the presence of volcanic
dust.
The question naturally comes up
whether, granting that the sun did have
a faint spell in April last year, from which
! he afterward recovered, there is any like
all who remember the abnormally cool
intervals experienced last summer will
wonder If the god OF day has already had
a second stroke of this dispiriting para
lysis.
AS to the causes which could produce
a sudden diminution of the solar radiation
we are very much in the dark. We dc
know, however, that the sun has about
him an atmosphere, or we may call 1t a
blanket, of metallic vapors which serves
to cut off a large part of the radiation
that would otherwise stream out into
space. Professor Langley himself many
years ago made a series of Investigations
which have become classic in astronomy
on the suns radiant energy, and he arriv.
ed at the conclusion that II the blanket
of absorbing vapors were stripped off from
the face of the sun the earth would fee
the effect by getting about twice as much
heat as II now receives. 1t would be like
removing a screen from in front of a fire
OF course, any decrease in the amount
of heat supplied by the sun must come
from a thickening instead of a thinning
or a removal OF the solar blanket. How
such an effect could arise can only bC
conjectured. 1t might be due to a change
in the nature Of the vapors surrounding
the sun, or to a change in their depth and
opacity.
It may look like a very easy thing t
study the effect OF the visible changes o.
the solar disk upon the suns radiation
but in fact it is very difficult thing
one OF the most difficult in physica
Gated influences at work which must b.
disentangled that the problem may re-
quire many moro years for its complies
solution. Professor Langley has made
good beginning; the expedition recent!
made to Mt. Wilson in California, headeC