The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-01
IFNiR.su iziIrlaI M

| dEC IOuE tCttVctS ab<A H04t&Q t0+n e@uD place. two of the sun and two of the
 moon. Saturn is beginning to spread for every four square feet of surface of old Sol will reach their lowest ebb l in importance and numbers; Halley's
 comet will. again return to mortal
 vision: and other lesser events In the solar system will occur. Beforb next
 December's sun Is set the star gazers of the world may have many things | to add to the book of human knowi-
 edge. The GovernneHt is studying the theat of the sun, the Carnegie Institu- | ton is measuring tn e heat of stars and is also installing in its Mount
 Wilson Observatory the largest tele- scope in the world. one that will pen
 citrate even further. than the astron- mer has gone towards the vast confines ! The first eclipse of the sun VIII occur
 June IT, and will be visible in the United States north, of . line drawn from San Francisco to the mouth Of the. Rio Grande River The second eclipse of the sun will be only partial one and will be invisible In the United
 States. The only land from which sit will be visible is the southern part of l Eastern Australia. Both the. lunar eclipses will be in tofa1itys and will be visible in the United States; the l one occurring June will be visible only in the Eastern and Central time belts, while the other will be seen Throughout the United states. The eclipses of the sun will not be as full of interest as some others have been. and the second one. occurring in De- cetnber.i will go. unobserved, at least
 so far as AmericaE astrohomers are concerned. E3s4 The coming of Halieys comet will be | the astronomical event of the heavens of 1eos For thirty-eight years # has been traveling toward us at the
 rate of 2,24s, 900 miles every day. and | is now about 460.00o.00e miles awRy. By the middle of May, 1910. ir Is ex- pected to reach it's perhclion--tbe nearest point 1t will reach--which wilf | be about 65,o00,000 miles away. Then | 1t will turn back and travel out be- yond the confines of the solar system. to reverse it's course only after 3.ooe.-
 100000 miles of wandering has been undergone, It comes once every sey-'
 enty-ffve years, but loses some of US brightness. Untverse-trotting seems to put the stains of travel upon it. The | Astronomical and Astrophysical So- ciety of Amerfca has appointed committee of four astronomers to out. I line ways and means flor studying this celestial visitof. The comet
 bears the name of Haley because It was he who predicted it's return. ssnf- 1 ing that he would be dead when it
 came. but that he wanted posterity 70 remember his prediction.
 The coming of this comet will bring heavy neteoric showers with 1t, and the world may expect to see some bril-. liant displays of shooting stars. It
 is said there are 50e.000,oo0 meteors hurled in our direction every year, end and if it were not for the atmospheric cushion which destroys them by the
 development of ferventl frictional heat,
 not one of us could escape this great celestial bombardment. $ In the New
 York Museum of Natural History. there
 is A meteor which penetrated the earth's armor,~ as it were. and fell in
 greenland. It weighs nearly forty
 tons.
 The rings of Saturn begin to grow
 wider this year. and will continue to
 expand until 1915, when contraction
 will again set in.i For years it was
 thought that these rings were clouds
 of vapor around theNplanet, but recent
 spectroscopic tests show that they are
 made up of minute particles travelling
 on their own orbits. As stated before.
 there will be. few sun spots, to be
 watched, as this Is an on season for
 them.
 One of the most interesting under |
 day is the studies being made by the
 astrophysical observatory of the. Smithsonian Institution toward soly-
 ing the questions of the suns heat.
 All life, all being, depends upon the
 sun. Decrease it's temperature few
 degrees and the world would become enshrouded in dsrkness. A thousand in-
 teresting and valuable things depend
 on what can be learned about ths suns
 haaf ahaarvafOrw fhAU have
 made all sorts of traps to catch sum
 beams, and once caught they can
 never escape until. they have added
 their mite to the sufn of human knowi-
 edge about the great source of our
 light and life. .-T.-
 An instrument has been devised
 which tells the difference of tempera-
 ture up to a hundred -millinoth of a de-
 gree, million times more sensitive
 than the most delicate thermoneter
 in general use It has been found that
 the sun is a very hot place. It gives Of
 heat enough to develop one horse power
 his rings; the sunspots on the surface
 under ideal conditions and for every six
 and half square feet under average
 conditions with the sun at meridian.
 A city lot of average size would give enough power to run g. hundred horse
 power plant. The solution of the. question of utilizing solar energy. in- wolves only the devising of a method
 of storing 1t when the sun is high and
 bright for times when 1t is low or
 clouded. ~
 Finite mind cannot we'll comprehend
 the tremendous heating power of the
 sui. Iteis said that if all the coal in the State of Pennsylvania were to be burned in a single second. the heat
 would not be equivalent to that given off by the sun in the same time. Each square foot of the suns surface-and
 it's diameter Is s66 900 miles-gives of l10, 900 caiories of heat per minute, enough to develop 10000 horsepower. ! 1t Is, generally conceded that the heat ! of the sun is caused by contraction. { Inch by inch the great luminary is falIing into itself; falling so slow, ! however, that it will take 1000 years | to shrink 440 miles. So emipeut an authority as Professor Newcomb as- sures us that it will be at ieastsa e1iI- l lion years before 1t shrinks faP enough to injure the human race.
 l Yet with all its heat and brightness, with all it's bigness by comparison with our little globe. and all its great l ness to us. the sun is only an unimpor- ! tant member of the universe, The | star Arcturus, is said to be 5000 times | as bright, and Algoi gives ixty-five times as much. light To the question | of the little child saying its Twinkle l twinkle little star. how I wonder what | you are" science has answered that q | is a sun like our own. In fact the l sun we see is rated by astronomy as | but a star of the fifth magnitude
 But even though it is an unimpoFtanI star from the universe standpoint. tt