Astronomy of To-day Part 1

Astronomy of To-day.

by Cecil G. Dolmage.

PREFACE

The object of this book is to give an account of the science of Astronomy, as it is known at the present day, in a manner acceptable to the _general reader_.

It is too often supposed that it is impossible to acquire any useful knowledge of Astronomy without much laborious study, and without adventuring into quite a new world of thought. The reasoning applied to the study of the celestial orbs is, however, of no different order from that which is employed in the affairs of everyday life. The science of mathematics is perhaps responsible for the idea that some kind of difference does exist; but mathematical processes are, in effect, no more than ordinary logic in concentrated form, the _shorthand of reasoning_, so to speak. I have attempted in the following pages to take the main facts and theories of Astronomy out of those mathematical forms which repel the general reader, and to present them in the _ordinary language of our workaday world_.

The few diagrams introduced are altogether supplementary, and are not connected with the text by any wearying cross-references. Each diagram is complete in itself, being intended to serve as a pictorial aid, in case the wording of the text should not have perfectly conveyed the desired meaning. The full page ill.u.s.trations are also described as adequately as possible at the foot of each.

As to the coloured frontispiece, this must be placed in a category by itself. It is the work of the _artist_ as distinct from the scientist.

The book itself contains incidentally a good deal of matter concerned with the Astronomy of the past, the introduction of which has been found necessary in order to make clearer the Astronomy of our time.

It would be quite impossible for me to enumerate here the many sources from which information has been drawn. But I acknowledge my especial indebtedness to Professor F.R. Moulton's _Introduction to Astronomy_ (Macmillan, 1906), to the works on Eclipses of the late Rev. S.J.

Johnson and of Mr. W.T. Lynn, and to the excellent _Journals of the British Astronomical a.s.sociation_. Further, for those grand questions concerned with the Stellar Universe at large, I owe a very deep debt to the writings of the famous American astronomer, Professor Simon Newcomb, and of our own countryman, Mr. John Ellard Gore; to the latter of whom I am under an additional obligation for much valuable information privately rendered.

In my search for suitable ill.u.s.trations, I have been greatly aided by the kindly advice of Mr. W. H. Wesley, the a.s.sistant Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. To those who have been so good as to permit me to reproduce pictures and photographs, I desire to record my best thanks as follows:--To the French Artist, Mdlle. Andree Moch; to the Astronomer Royal; to Sir David Gill, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S.; to the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society; to Professor E.B. Frost, Director of the Yerkes Observatory; to M.P. Puiseux, of the Paris Observatory; to Dr. Max Wolf, of Heidelberg; to Professor Percival Lowell; to the Rev. Theodore E.R. Phillips, M.A., F.R.A.S.; to Mr. W.H.

Wesley; to the Warner and Swasey Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.; to the publishers of _Knowledge_, and to Messrs. Sampson, Low & Co. For permission to reproduce the beautiful photograph of the Spiral Nebula in Canes Venatici (Plate XXII.), I am indebted to the distinguished astronomer, the late Dr. W.E. Wilson, D.Sc., F.R.S., whose untimely death, I regret to state, occurred in the early part of this year.

Finally, my best thanks are due to Mr. John Ellard Gore, F.R.A.S., M.R.I.A., to Mr. W.H. Wesley, and to Mr. John Butler Burke, M.A., of Cambridge, for their kindness in reading the proof-sheets.

CECIL G. DOLMAGE.

LONDON, S.W., _August 4, 1908._

ASTRONOMY OF TO-DAY

CHAPTER I

THE ANCIENT VIEW

It is never safe, as we know, to judge by appearances, and this is perhaps more true of astronomy than of anything else.

For instance, the idea which one would most naturally form of the earth and heaven is that the solid earth on which we live and move extends to a great distance in every direction, and that the heaven is an immense dome upon the inner surface of which the stars are fixed. Such must needs have been the idea of the universe held by men in the earliest times. In their view the earth was of paramount importance. The sun and moon were mere lamps for the day and for the night; and these, if not G.o.ds themselves, were at any rate under the charge of special deities, whose task it was to guide their motions across the vaulted sky.

Little by little, however, this simple estimate of nature began to be overturned. Difficult problems agitated the human mind. On what, for instance, did the solid earth rest, and what prevented the vaulted heaven from falling in upon men and crus.h.i.+ng them out of existence?

Fantastic myths sprang from the vain attempts to solve these riddles.

The Hindoos, for example, imagined the earth as supported by four elephants which stood upon the back of a gigantic tortoise, which, in its turn, floated on the surface of an elemental ocean. The early Western civilisations conceived the fable of the t.i.tan Atlas, who, as a punishment for revolt against the Olympian G.o.ds, was condemned to hold up the expanse of sky for ever and ever.

Later on glimmerings of the true light began to break in upon men. The Greek philosophers, who busied themselves much with such matters, gradually became convinced that the earth was spherical in shape, that is to say, round like a ball. In this opinion we now know that they were right; but in their other important belief, viz. that the earth was placed at the centre of all things, they were indeed very far from the truth.

By the second century of the Christian era, the ideas of the early philosophers had become hardened into a definite theory, which, though it appears very incorrect to us to-day, nevertheless demands exceptional notice from the fact that it was everywhere accepted as the true explanation until so late as some four centuries ago. This theory of the universe is known by the name of the Ptolemaic System, because it was first set forth in definite terms by one of the most famous of the astronomers of antiquity, Claudius Ptolemaeus Pelusinensis (100-170 A.D.), better known as Ptolemy of Alexandria.

In his system the Earth occupied the centre; while around it circled in order outwards the Moon, the planets Mercury and Venus, the Sun, and then the planets Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond these again revolved the background of the heaven, upon which it was believed that the stars were fixed--

"Stellis ardentibus aptum,"

as Virgil puts it (see Fig. 1).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--The Ptolemaic idea of the Universe.]

The Ptolemaic system persisted unshaken for about fourteen hundred years after the death of its author. Clearly men were flattered by the notion that their earth was the most important body in nature, that it stood still at the centre of the universe, and was the pivot upon which all things revolved.

CHAPTER II

THE MODERN VIEW

It is still well under four hundred years since the modern, or Copernican, theory of the universe supplanted the Ptolemaic, which had held sway during so many centuries. In this new theory, propounded towards the middle of the sixteenth century by Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), a Prussian astronomer, the earth was dethroned from its central position and considered merely as one of a number of planetary bodies which revolve around the sun. As it is not a part of our purpose to follow in detail the history of the science, it seems advisable to begin by stating in a broad fas.h.i.+on the conception of the universe as accepted and believed in to-day.

The Sun, the most important of the celestial bodies so far as we are concerned, occupies the central position; not, however, in the whole universe, but only in that limited portion which is known as the Solar System. Around it, in the following order outwards, circle the planets Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ura.n.u.s, and Neptune (see Fig. 2, p. 21). At an immense distance beyond the solar system, and scattered irregularly through the depth of s.p.a.ce, lie the stars. The two first-mentioned members of the solar system, Mercury and Venus, are known as the Inferior Planets; and in their courses about the sun, they always keep well inside the path along which our earth moves. The remaining members (exclusive of the earth) are called Superior Planets, and their paths lie all outside that of the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.--The Copernican theory of the Solar System.]

The five planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, have been known from all antiquity. Nothing then can bring home to us more strongly the immense advance which has taken place in astronomy during modern times than the fact that it is only 127 years since observation of the skies first added a planet to that time-honoured number. It was indeed on the 13th of March 1781, while engaged in observing the constellation of the Twins, that the justly famous Sir William Herschel caught sight of an object which he did not recognise as having met with before. He at first took it for a comet, but observations of its movements during a few days showed it to be a planet. This body, which the power of the telescope alone had thus shown to belong to the solar family, has since become known to science under the name of Ura.n.u.s. By its discovery the hitherto accepted limits of the solar system were at once pushed out to twice their former extent, and the hope naturally arose that other planets would quickly reveal themselves in the immensities beyond.

For a number of years prior to Herschel's great discovery, it had been noticed that the distances at which the then known planets circulated appeared to be arranged in a somewhat orderly progression outwards from the sun. This seeming plan, known to astronomers by the name of Bode's Law, was closely confirmed by the distance of the new planet Ura.n.u.s.

There still lay, however, a broad gap between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Had another planet indeed circuited there, the solar system would have presented an appearance of almost perfect order. But the void between Mars and Jupiter was unfilled; the s.p.a.ce in which one would reasonably expect to find another planet circling was unaccountably empty.

On the first day of the nineteenth century the mystery was however explained, a body being discovered[1] which revolved in the s.p.a.ce that had hitherto been considered planetless. But it was a tiny globe hardly worthy of the name of planet. In the following year a second body was discovered revolving in the same s.p.a.ce; but it was even smaller in size than the first. During the ensuing five years two more of these little planets were discovered. Then came a pause, no more such bodies being added to the system until half-way through the century, when suddenly the discovery of these so-called "minor planets" began anew. Since then additions to this portion of our system have rained thick and fast. The small bodies have received the name of Asteroids or Planetoids; and up to the present time some six hundred of them are known to exist, all revolving in the previously unfilled s.p.a.ce between Mars and Jupiter.

In the year 1846 the outer boundary of the solar system was again extended by the discovery that a great planet circulated beyond Ura.n.u.s.

The new body, which received the name of Neptune, was brought to light as the result of calculations made at the same time, though quite independently, by the Cambridge mathematician Adams, and the French astronomer Le Verrier. The discovery of Neptune differed, however, from that of Ura.n.u.s in the following respect. Ura.n.u.s was found merely in the course of ordinary telescopic survey of the heavens. The position of Neptune, on the other hand, was predicted as the result of rigorous mathematical investigations undertaken with the object of fixing the position of an unseen and still more distant body, the attraction of which, in pa.s.sing by, was disturbing the position of Ura.n.u.s in its revolution around the sun. Adams actually completed his investigation first; but a delay at Cambridge in examining that portion of the sky, where he announced that the body ought just then to be, allowed France to s.n.a.t.c.h the honour of discovery, and the new planet was found by the observer Galle at Berlin, very near the place in the heavens which Le Verrier had mathematically predicted for it.

Nearly fifty years later, that is to say, in our own time, another important planetary discovery was made. One of the recent additions to the numerous and constantly increasing family of the asteroids, a tiny body brought to light in 1898, turned out after all not to be circulating in the customary s.p.a.ce between Mars and Jupiter, but actually in that between our earth and Mars. This body is very small, not more than about twenty miles across. It has received the name of Eros (the Greek equivalent for Cupid), in allusion to its insignificant size as compared with the other leading members of the system.

This completes the list of the planets which, so far, have revealed themselves to us. Whether others exist time alone will show. Two or three have been suspected to revolve beyond the path of Neptune; and it has even been a.s.serted, on more than one occasion, that a planet circulates nearer to the sun than Mercury. This supposed body, to which the name of "Vulcan" was provisionally given, is said to have been "discovered" in 1859 by a French doctor named Lescarbault, of Orgeres near Orleans; but up to the present there has been no sufficient evidence of its existence. The reason why such uncertainty should exist upon this point is easy enough to understand, when we consider the overpowering glare which fills our atmosphere all around the sun's place in the sky. Mercury, the nearest known planet to the sun, is for this reason always very difficult to see; and even when, in its course, it gets sufficiently far from the sun to be left for a short time above the horizon after sunset, it is by no means an easy object to observe on account of the mists which usually hang about low down near the earth.

One opportunity, however, offers itself from time to time to solve the riddle of an "intra-Mercurial" planet, that is to say, of a planet which circulates within the path followed by Mercury. The opportunity in question is furnished by a total eclipse of the sun; for when, during an eclipse of that kind, the body of the moon for a few minutes entirely hides the sun's face, and the dazzling glare is thus completely cut off, astronomers are enabled to give an unimpeded, though all too hurried, search to the region close around. A goodly number of total eclipses of the sun have, however, come and gone since the days of Lescarbault, and no planet, so far, has revealed itself in the intra-Mercurial s.p.a.ce. It seems, therefore, quite safe to affirm that no globe of sufficient size to be seen by means of our modern telescopes circulates nearer to the sun than the planet Mercury.

Next in importance to the planets, as permanent members of the solar system, come the relatively small and secondary bodies known by the name of Satellites. The name _satellite_ is derived from a Latin word signifying _an attendant_; for the bodies so-called move along always in close proximity to their respective "primaries," as the planets which they accompany are technically termed.

The satellites cannot be considered as allotted with any particular regularity among the various members of the system; several of the planets, for instance, having a goodly number of these bodies accompanying them, while others have but one or two, and some again have none at all. Taking the planets in their order of distance outward from the Sun, we find that neither Mercury nor Venus are provided with satellites; the Earth has only one, viz. our neighbour the Moon; while Mars has but two tiny ones, so small indeed that one might imagine them to be merely asteroids, which had wandered out of their proper region and attached themselves to that planet. For the rest, so far as we at present know, Jupiter possesses seven,[2] Saturn ten, Ura.n.u.s four, and Neptune one. It is indeed possible, nay more, it is extremely probable, that the two last-named planets have a greater number of these secondary bodies revolving around them; but, unfortunately, the Uranian and Neptunian systems are at such immense distances from us, that even the magnificent telescopes of to-day can extract very little information concerning them.

From the distribution of the satellites, the reader will notice that the planets relatively near to the sun are provided with few or none, while the more distant planets are richly endowed. The conclusion, therefore, seems to be that nearness to the sun is in some way unfavourable either to the production, or to the continued existence, of satellites.

A planet and its satellites form a repet.i.tion of the solar system on a tiny scale. Just as the planets revolve around the sun, so do these secondary bodies revolve around their primaries. When Galileo, in 1610, turned his newly invented telescope upon Jupiter, he quickly recognised in the four circling moons which met his gaze, a miniature edition of the solar system.