The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-06-17

which this may be calculated, and all
give the same answer. They are then in
a position to tell how big the sun IS, and
lney place its diameter at $4,000 miles.
II u takes forty days to 60 round the
earth. at the same speed it would take
WE'VE years to travel around the sun.
II the earth were to swell to the size
of the sun and man should grow tall in
proportion, he would be about 625 feet
nigh, or nearly a hundred feet higher
tnan the Washington monument II
l50-pound man could fly to the sun, his
weight there would be about two tons,
owing to the vast increase in the force
OF gravity, due, IN turn, to the far greater
earth.
It is estimated that old Sol radiates
enough heat comfortably to provide for
two thousand million planets like our
own. Each square foot Of his surface
gives off enough heat to drive an ocean
inner, ana two acres Of the sun S surface
would furnish power enough to drive all
the machinery in the world now driven
by steam. Its heat concentrated on a
column Of ice two and a fourth miles
square and reaching from the earth 10
the sun, would suffice to melt the whole
column in single second. In seven sec
onds more the water from the melted
column would be vaporized. What be
comes of all this heat and light ask the
astronomers. With only one billonth
part of it used by the planets. do the
other SS9SS9'999 parts go on and on INTO
empty space forever. at the rate of $4,000
miles a second2 Is the sun so prodigal
with its heat that it uses only the bill
ionth part to a good purpose?
And when will this terrific expenditure
Of energy cease? Scientists know that
if it We're solid lump of the best an
thracite coal. burning under a forced
draft, it would not give off as much heat
as at present, and that the last Vestge
of that lump would be burned away in
5000 years.
The accepted theory Of the source Of
the suns heat is that of contraction. 1t
has been shown that concentration OF
twenty-five feet year in the suns vol |
Ume would account for all the heat IT |
radiates. At that rate it would take |
10000 years for the difference TO become
appreciate to the astronomer, and H. |
900. 900 years for it seriously to affect con- |
ditiOns on the earth.
Simon NewComb. whose name IS known /
wherever men study the heavens. says |
that the chrOmosphere, the ring Of light |
around the sun at a total eclipse, II an 1
ocean of fire, is as deep as the Atlantic |
is broad, and many times hotter than the |
fiercest furnace. If there are hurricanes
in the sun they blow as fast In a second /
as our greatest storms in an hour In |
thirty seconds one of them would blow /
from the Canadian border TO the Gulf /
of Mexico, not destroying houses and life |
alone, but converting the whole landscape |
into a seething mass of glowing vapor i
We think of a Nesuvius eruption with its /
streams of lava. yet the sun shoots col /
destroy in the twinkling of an eye every /
vestige of life on d world like ours.
What would happen to man If the /
earth should forget the law of gravita-
ton that keeps it racing around the sun? |
Astronomers declare that at once we i
would begin to travel straightWay into |
space, getting further and further away
at the rate of a thousand miles ana more i
an hour. and in a years time the last
vestige of life on the earth would have
passed forever.
Perhaps the greatest work now being
done in learning more about the mys-
teries of the sun is at Mount Wilson, Cal,
under the auspices of the Carnegie insti-
tuition. Cooperating with its own OBJ
servers is Professor Abbott of the astrO-
physical observatory of the Smithsonian
institution. One Of the instruments used
In the studies is the radiometer, and an
other the bOlOmeter. The radiOmeter is
so delicate that the heat of a candle a
half mile away viii have a strong effect
upon it: and when the image of a mans
face. at a distance Of q half mile, is
thrown upon it by the reflecting mirrors. /
it shows a change Of twenty-five points,
where even a half point could be de-
tected-
A teacher of astronomy asked an in
attentive pupil what the corona was. The
forgotten. Too bad answered the
teacher, with never a smile, that only
0ne man I'm the world ever knew what
The corona was and he has forgotten it. !
But it is the hope of many astrO-physi-
cists that the patient work they propose
10 do in the next quarter century will
reveal what the pupil thought he had for
gotten, along with many other things
about the great orb upon which all mum
dane life depends In learning about it
as the center of the solar system, they
viii also learn about millions Of other
stars, some of which are as much
brighter than the sun at MONDAY is
brighter than twilight. and as much hot
er as the torrid zone is than the north
pole.
Copyright 1909, by Frederic J. Haskin)