The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-29

Orion will be found a couple of first
 magnitude stars which are famous
 throughout the world as Gemini, the
 Heavenly Twins. Castor is the one
 nearer the pole; Pollux is slightly the
 brighter of the two. But Castor is
 rather the. more interesting star, Tor
 it is a double star as seen in the tel
 escope, and, furthermore, the spec
 troscope, that most powerful weapon
 of the astronomer, has shown that
 each of the visible conponents of
 Castor is itself a double. thus mak-
 ing it in reality a system composed
 of four suns. If Castor has a plane-
 tary system on the line of the suns,
 the resulting conditions would be ex-
 tremely interesting and may safely
 be left to the readers imagination. The Winter Solstice.
 December is the month of the win , ter solstice, the shortest day and the longest night. According to the Unit ed States Navy's official publication, The American Ephemeris and Nauti- cal Almanac, winter commences on the 22d at 4:27 P. M, Eastern stand ard time. At that time the Sun will be as far south in the heavens as it can get and will begin it's northward journey again. The days commence to get longer at the expense of the nights and the noon altitude of the sun increases, but the days still grow colder and colder. This may at first sight appear like an anomoly, but, of course, it is due to the fact that the coldest weather of the winter is the result of a cumulative effect of the loss of heat by the earth. The north i ern hemisphere continues to lose 1 cefves from the sun for some time after the solstice. For a similar req son, as we have previously pointed out in this column, the hottest wea- ther of the summer does not come at the time of the summer solstice, June 22, but about the first week of August.
 The two important factors in the question of the receipt Of solar ener- gy are CD the height of the sun in 1 the sky and CD the length of time l that the sun is above the horizon. It is interesting to compare the noon attitudes of the sun at the two sol 1 stices, winter and summer. On the former the highest point reached by i the sun is for these attitudes ap- l proxeimately 26. deg, the angular dis l tance from horizon to zenith being
 
 1 73 deg, only about IT deg. from the very top of the sky. This shows what 1 the great difference in the efficiency 1 of the suns work in summer and | winter is due to.
 The Planets. .. Again in December, as in several 1 preceding months, Uranus is the only | one of the planets to grace our map. Venus is a morning star and will con- tinue as one right through the first l half of the coming year. Mars, Ju- l r1ter and Saturn, too, are morning l stars, but will appear as evening stars early in the year, the latter two, in 1 fact, changing during the course of ] the month. Mercury, along with the 1 others, is also a morning star and will 1 give the early rfsers an opportunity 1 to observe him during the latter half l of the month, for a week or ten days | following and preceding the 2d | We shall have for a time during | the month a fairly unusual situation 1 in the solar system, for all the plan- I cts, with the exception of Uranus ] will be on the same side of the sun. No untoward effects from this need
 be feared, however.