Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-01-13
Learn One New Thing Every Day
OUR MYSTERIOUS v INCONSISTENCIES
BULLETINS BY THE
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

A modest little local brief in the
journal of this universe, which a
physicist believes to have some limit,
even though one astronomer now
%conceives it to be a thousand times
larger than we thought it, might
read like this:
"On June 81 the tiny planet, Earth
is expecting to see sparks (meteoric
showers) from swish of the 2,00O,-
000-miie ta-. of the comet Pons-Win-
necke, which viii just miss hitting
Earth by only twelve million miles,"
Though we are not certain of the
exact nature OF these hairy stars
| astronomers beiiev comets are made
up of sma'. particles, very far from
each other. surrounded by masses
of gas explains a bulletin from
the Washington, ID. c., headquarters
of the National Geographic Society.
THE main body of a comet var
| les from a few hundred to a few
thousand niles in diameter. and its
tail, which makes it as spectacular
among heavenly bodies as the tail
of the peacock makes him in the bird
| world, measures from a few million
| to moro than q hundred million
miles in length.
Tails Turn From Sun
1.-THE tails of comets have some
peculiar characteristics. They turn
always away from the sun and they
| increase n decrease with aStonish-
ing rapidity, the sun evidently caus-
| ing them to lengchen enormously.
Though its volum.e is very great. the
actual mass of a comet is very small.
| Scientists tell us That the average
density of & comes is but a fraction
of that OF the air near the earth's
surface ant that the density of the
extremity If the tail is, of course.
very much less.
This is evident from the fact that
these bodies, which are 81 much
larger in volume than the planets.
are detected from. their orbits by
the PLANETS, which are not even dis
turoed enough by their appearance
for any observations to be taken of
it. Even when a comet passed
through Jupiter's satillite system in
1886 not Il moon veered from its
course, bu. the comet totally chang
ed it's orbit as a result of the mag
netic force eXerted, That the SUBJ
stance of comets and their tails
is much ra~efied is further apparent
because even the faintest of the WIS.,
ible stars can be seer through them.
work associated with the behav-
Tor and the nature of comets and
their orbits is yet in it's infancy. and
the knowledge that the spectroscope
reveals regarding their composition
is confusing. 1t seems to say that
they are made of hydrocarbon va
por whieh shines by its W light.
but part Of their light must be re-
f1ected sunlight as the brilliancy of
a comet increases as it approaches
the sun anG diminishes as it passes
away.
Jupiter a Siren for Comets
1.-The idea that comets are wan
derers in pace has long ago been
giv.n up. Now we know that they
belong to our solar system. "ei"
orbits are such large parapolas of
ellipses that they sometimes require
hundreds Of thousands of ear to
complete d revolution. Occasionally
the fascinating Jupiter will lure one
of the Shooting stars from its
straight ant narrow Path. Like the
foolish moth 1t viii; revolve around
tho create ligh' ana apparently for
a brief While become a part of our
system My to pursue it's w way
after discovering the vanity of its
affection. When the comet chances
to cross the orbit OF the earth we ex-
p%erience "a meteor'c shower. This is
what we Gre told is to happen to us
Af