Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1909-07-07
MOON A CAPTIVE OF
EARTH SAYS HE
PACIFIC COAST. PROFESSOR ex
PLoDEs THEORY or DARWIN
AND OTHERS.
OLD LUNA ONCE BELONGED TO
sUN-A NEW
THEORY.

san Francisco, June 26.-Announce-
ment was made last night by Pro
lessor 7. J. ]. See, astronomer in
charge of the naval observatory at
Mare Island, that he has mathemat-
ically proved a discovery that the
moon Is planet captured by the
earth from space and not a detached
portion of our globe. He rejects en-
tirely the long accepted theories OF
! Laplace and Sir George Darwin as
| cribing earthly origin to the moon
and asserts that his discovery is
supported by rigorous mathematical
| proof based ON the methods of Hill,
Poincare and Darwin.
Professor sees announcement was
made in a paper presented to the
meeting of the astronomical society
of the Pacific coast and is a further
development of his discovery pro-
mulgated last nuary that all plan
cts and satellites are captured bod
les. which have since had their or
bits reduced in size and rounded up
under the secular action of the neb-
ular resisting medium once pervad-
ing the solar system Ia his for
mer paper presenting this theory,
Prof See showed how these bodies
which once revolved around the Sun
like the astermuds now do, had
made circuits close about the plan
cts. In the neighborhood of planet
like Jupiter, the sphere of the suns
control was shown to have an ex-
tension or protuberance on it, like
the neck of bottle, or hour-glass
with very unequal bulbs, and when
the small bodies moving about the
sun came into this neck they could
revolve about Jupiter, and in many
cases again return to their paths
! about the sun. In other cases after
revolving about Jupiter they would
be captured by the action of the
nehulous resisting medium about the
planet. and stay there forever as
satellites.
by revolving about the planet for
a long time, their orbits would be
rounded up into almost perfect cir
cles. and made smaller and smaller.
till they became just like the sat
ellie orbits are now observed TO be.
Such, he says. has been the origin
of the satellites generally, and the
rings If Saturn have had a similar
.origin-by the capture of waste
nebulosity once. circulating around
tire sun. When this matter is once
brought in near the planet. it can
not again escape, but must stay
there permanently because in the
space near the planet the planets
attraction is supreme.
N the case of the terres rial
moon, however. more than usual I'M
certainty existed as to how this
large satellite originated and spe-
cial investigation of the problem had
o be made. The moons mass is
relatively very large, about one
eightieth of the earth's mass; and
then Darwin's argument that the
moon had once been a part of the
earth had to be overcome. THIS
Professor See says, he has done
with entire success, and tonight he
announced that he had proved math-
ematically that our moon too had
been captured and had come to us
from he heavenly spaces.
1t was, ne says, originally plan
ct like Mercury, but not quite so
large, and moved about the sun at
nearly the same distance as the
earth. Then it came between the
sun and the earth in such a way as
to enter the neck of the space re-
sembling bottle neck projecting
from the suns sphere of control
and enclosing the earth This neck
was quite small and narrow, but
the bulb of space enclosing the
earth and constituting it's sphere OF
attraction was of considerable size.
When the moon had once left the
suns control and gone into the bulb /
about the earth. = met with some
resistance, and the neck became /
closed so that the lion was bot )